Topic: Knowledge Utilization

Purpose: The Center for Research Use in Education (CRUE) aimed to study what drives research use, from the production of knowledge to sharing and application of research knowledge. CRUE had two major lines of work: a structured program of research and national leadership and dissemination activities. CRUE researchers designed, produced, piloted, and validated two parallel surveys for researchers and practitioners: the Survey of Evidence in Education for Schools (SEE-S) and the Survey of Evidence in Education for Researchers (SEE-R). Both surveys contain parallel sets of items designed to measure several dimensions of research production, knowledge mobilization, and research use. The CRUE researchers then conducted descriptive studies using the surveys to test their conceptual framework of knowledge use for both the research and practice communities. Finally, CRUE conducted case studies to better understand the factors that support the use of research evidence in school decision making. Throughout the grant, CRUE engaged in leadership and outreach activities that provided information and training on research use to practitioners, helped researchers learn how to effectively communicate to practitioners, and helped to build connections between the two communities.

Key Personnel: May, Henry; Farley-Ripple, Elizabeth; Okagaki, Lynn; Karpyn, Allison; Maynard, Rebecca; Louis, Karen Seashore

R&D CENTER ACTIVITIES
The following summary describes the four major research projects of CRUE, followed by a description of their national leadership and dissemination activities.

Measurement Study —
  The CRUE team developed two instruments in their measurement study: the SEE-S and SEE-R. These survey instruments capture practitioner and researcher practices and perspectives on research use. The surveys are structured in a parallel format, each with five sections:

• Depth of Production/Use of Research
• Assumptions and Perspectives about Research
• Networks Connecting Research and Practice
• Capacity to Mobilize Research for Practice/Critically Consume Research
• Research Brokering Practices

Both surveys were validated for use in subsequent studies.

Descriptive Study 1 — Survey of Evidence in Education for Schools (SEE-S) Data from the large-scale field trial of the SEE-S revealed factors that influence schools' depth of research use.

Key Outcomes: (See Farley-Ripple et al., 2022)

• Schools rely on local data analysis and research instead of on external research; they also use external research in combination with local research and local data analysis.
• Engagement with external research varies within and across schools, reflecting different levels of individual and organizational capacity to use research.
• Engagement with traditional research products, like journal articles, is quite limited, with greater engagement with practitioner-adapted or locally developed resources, tools, and/or routines.
• Information sources that are easier to access and that can be provided by their school and district colleagues are used more frequently. This practice aligns with the typically limited timeframe for both individual and organizational decisions.
• School leaders play a significant role in the use of research through organizational decisions, sharing research evidence, shaping participation in decision making, and leveraging the use of organizational structures, processes, and incentives.
• Engagement with research is mediated by a wide range of individuals and organizations that serve as brokers of the research, including largely informal school-based brokers who facilitate linkages between evidence and practice.
• Practitioners' engagement in research-related training or research activities is limited.
• Practitioners' engagement with researchers is limited. However, practitioners often report a desire to connect but lack of knowledge as to how to do that.

Descriptive Study 2 — Survey of Evidence in Education for Researchers (SEE-R)
A major purpose of this cross-sectional survey study was to develop and validate a survey instrument that can assess the depth of the "production of research", namely the degree to which researchers design, implement, and disseminate their research studies so that the results are more likely to be adopted by school-based educators in their practice. This study aimed to understand how researchers seek to inform educational practice through research and where there could be potential obstacles to ensuring that research can influence educational practice. This information is important because investments in education research need to result in products that practitioners can find and use to inform their practice. CRUE also examined the perspectives and assumptions that researchers hold about what makes research more likely to be accessible and usable by practitioners, how they participate in networks that connect them to practitioners, and how they participate in brokerage activities to make research accessible to practitioners. For items that were included on both the SEE-S and SEE-R, CRUE compared the responses to determine how researchers and practitioners were aligned or misaligned in their perspectives and assumptions about aspects of research make it more likely to affect practice.

Case Studies of Research Brokerage

The CRUE team also undertook a supplementary research project to explore the system of research brokerage. Research brokerage is the exchange, transformation, and communication of education research through a network of actors, activities, and motivations.

Key Outcomes: (See Shewchuk & Farley-Ripple, 2022)

• The role of intermediaries across cases was largely informal and not well leveraged.
• There is a need to expand the view of what constitutes a broker—this can include school- and district-based practitioners.
• Educators in the study primarily relied on prescriptive resources rather than engaging with original research, valuing accessible frameworks from sources like books to guide implementation. The adaptation of research for local contexts was highlighted as a crucial skill, emphasizing the importance of synthesizing and summarizing research for practical application within educational settings.
• The study team observed a high potential for research use among brokering organizations with explicit commitments to supporting evidence-based practice, driven by both intrinsic motivations, such as a belief in improving teaching and learning, and extrinsic motivations, exemplified by explicit evidence-use missions. Organizational routines that expect educator participation in knowledge exchange events contribute to the adaptation of research for local use, but while external motivations may drive participation in such events, internal motivations seem more influential in promoting evidence-based practice and supporting its adoption or implementation.
• The education system may need stronger systems and infrastructure that facilitate a range of pathways between research and practice and enable members of the research, practice, and intermediary spaces to effectively plan for knowledge mobilization and use.
• Actors positioned within the education ecosystem have a vital role to play in brokering knowledge across boundaries.
• Researchers can engage in a variety of activities to encourage research brokerage and use.
• The transformation of research findings into actionable products is complex and may take time.
• Actors' motivations were driven by organizational beliefs and values.

Case Studies of Research Use Finally, the CRUE team conducted case studies of "deep users'' of research to better understand the connections and relationships among researchers, research brokers, and educators that support research use in schools. Four schools described what the use of research looked like in their schools and the conditions that supported their use of research as well as how those conditions came to exist.

Key Outcomes: (See Farley-Ripple et al., 2022)

• Specific practices are associated with schools' deep use of research, including engagement with multiple forms of evidence, formal and informal strategies for search, high levels of participation in different aspects of evidence use, and collective sensemaking when using evidence to inform decisions.
• There are multiple models of "deep use", including both "top-down" (with research use being driven by district staff who make decisions about programs that practitioners then use in their practice) and "bottom-up" (in which teachers are involved in using research and in decision making).
• There are mutually reinforcing conditions of structures, processes, culture, and leadership that support engagement with research.
• Individual capacities and perspectives of knowledge brokers, including school and district leaders, in shaping school practices is of critical importance.

The CRUE team also examined 10 researchers' knowledge mobilization practices.

Key Outcomes: (See Farley-Ripple, MacGregor, Mazal, 2023)

• There is no single model for knowledge mobilization, and knowledge mobilization can be part of any research design.
• Knowledge mobilization strategies can improve the quality of research.
• Individual factors (such as background, experiences, and beliefs), project factors (such as design and context), and institutional factors (such as funding, incentives, and supports) underlie researchers' success centering practice in all aspects of their work and in the impact of their research.
• Knowledge mobilization is largely dependent on individuals or teams of researchers who value and have the capacity to engage in knowledge mobilization, rather than systemic support and opportunities within the larger research ecosystem.

Leadership and Dissemination Activities: In addition to its research activities, CRUE conducted national leadership and dissemination activities (see links under "Additional Online Resources and Information").

Conferences — CRUE sponsored several online conferences and workshops targeting researchers and practitioners. Each of these are hyperlinked in the "Additional Online Resources" section below. CRUE also developed and sponsored pre-sessions and in-conference sessions at national education research conferences that focused on strategies to increase research use in schools, including development of researcher-practitioner partnerships; incentives, policies, and expectations of research institutions; and effective strategies for communication and dissemination. For a list of conference presentations, see the CRUE website.

Products and Publications

ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.

Project Website: https://crue.cehd.udel.edu/research-4-schools/

Additional Online Resources and Information:

• Social Media: @udcrue
• Research Broker Network Meeting January 25-29, 2021 (See Report).
• IES PI Meeting 2022 video: Findings from the Center

Surveys (to access the surveys, please submit a request through the CRUE website).

• Survey of Evidence in Education for Schools (SEE-S)
• Survey of Evidence in Education for Researchers (SEE-R)

Archived Workshops:

• Research for Practice: A Virtual Workshop Series for Educators - Spring 2022
• Use of Research Evidence: Increase the Impact of Your Research: A Workshop Series on Strategies for Knowledge Mobilization (available through the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness)

Select Publications:

Book chapters

Farley-Ripple, E.N., & Grajeda, S. (2019). Avenues of Influence: An Exploration of School-Based Practitioners' as Knowledge Brokers and Mobilizers. In Joel Malin & Chris Brown (Eds.) The Role of Knowledge Brokers in Education: Connecting the Dots. (pp. 65–89). Routledge. 

Farley-Ripple, E.N. (2021). Building and leveraging: How to use networks to support evidence use. In C. Brown, J. Flood, & S. MacGregor (Eds.) The Research-Informed teaching revolution North America: A handbook for the 21st Century teacher. (pp. 127–136). John Catt Publishing.

Farley-Ripple, E.N. & Yun, J. (2021). The use of ego network analysis as a measure of capacity to use research. In M. Weber and I. Yanovitzky (Eds.) Networks, Brokers, and the Policymaking Process. (pp. 155–181). Palgrave Macmillan.

Journal articles

Farley-Ripple, E., May, H., Karpyn, A., Tilley, K., & McDonough, K. (2018). Rethinking connections between research and practice in education: A conceptual framework. Educational Researcher 47(4), 235–245.

Farley-Ripple, E.N. (2021). A new day for education research and practice. Phi Delta Kappan, 102 (7), 8–13.

MacGregor, S., Malin, J., & Farley-Ripple, E.N. (2022). An application of the social-ecological systems framework to promoting evidence-informed policy and practice. Peabody Journal of Education. 97(1), 112–125.

Research Reports

Farley-Ripple, E. N., MacGregor, S., Mazal, M. (2023) Knowledge Mobilization in the Production of Education Research: A Mixed Methods Study. The Center for Research Use in Education (CRUE) & the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy (CRESP), University of Delaware.

Farley-Ripple, E.N., Tilley, K., Mead, H., Van Horne, S. & Agboh, D. (2022)How is evidence use enacted in schools? A mixed methods multiple case study of "deep-use" schools. The Center for Research Use in Education (CRUE) & the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy (CRESP), University of Delaware.

Farley-Ripple, E., Van Horne, S., Tilley, K., Shewchuk, S., May, H., Micklos, D. A., & Blackman, H. (2022). Survey of Evidence in Education for Schools (SEE-S) Descriptive Report. The Center for Research Use in Education (CRUE) & the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy (CRESP), University of Delaware.

Farley-Ripple, E., Van Horne, S., Tilley, K., Shewchuk, S., May, H., Micklos, D. A., & Blackman, H. (2022). Survey of Evidence in Education for Schools (SEE-S) Descriptive Report Executive Summary. The Center for Research Use in Education (CRUE) & the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy (CRESP), University of Delaware.

May, H., Blackman, H., Van Horne, S., Tilley, K., Farley-Ripple, E. N., Shewchuk, S., Agboh, D., & Micklos, D. A. (2022).Survey of Evidence in Education for Schools (SEE-S) Technical Report. The Center for Research Use in Education (CRUE) & the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy (CRESP), University of Delaware.

Shewchuk, S. & Farley-Ripple, E.N. (2022)UnderstandingBrokerage in Education — Backward Tracking from Practice to Research. The Center for Research Use in Education (CRUE) & the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy (CRESP), University of Delaware.

Shewchuk, S. & Farley-Ripple, E.N. (2023) Understanding Brokerage in Education — Forward Tracking from Research to Practice. The Center for Research Use in Education (CRUE) & the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy (CRESP), University of Delaware.