RECOMMENDED GENERAL READING

• Learning About the Use of Research to Inform Evidence-Based Policy and Practice: Early Lessons and Future Directions by Vivian Tseng (8 pages, 104kb PDF). This essay, which is featured in our 2009 Annual Report, discusses our developing knowledge about the field and its capacity.
• Davies, H.T.O. & Nutley, S.M. Learning More About How Research-Based Knowledge Gets Used: Guidance in the Development of New Empirical Research, 2008. (35 pages, 203kb PDF) This paper, commissioned by the Foundation, is based on the review work described in their book: Nutley, Sandra M., Isabel Walter, and Huw T.O. Davies. Using Evidence: How research can inform public services. Bristol: The Policy Press, 2007.

• Focusing on Demand: Studying Research Use in Policy and Practice Affecting Youth by Vivian Tseng with the Senior Program Team (6 pages, 117kb PDF). Featured in our 2008 Annual Report, this essay is an update of our thinking about studying the use of research evidence.
• Studying the Use of Research Evidence in Policy and Practice by Vivian Tseng with the Senior Program Team (8 pages, 113kb PDF). This essay is from our 2007 Annual Report and explains our interest in the use of research evidence.
• The most recent RFP for the Use of Research Evidence is designed to help us better understand the acquisition, interpretation, and use of research evidence in policy and practice that affect youth.
• The Uses of Research in Policy and Practice (20 slides, 1,753 KB) presented by Vivian Tseng at Crossing Boundaries: Public and Private Roles in Assuring Child Well-being, a conference sponsored by Council on Contemporary Families & University-Based Child and Family Policy Consortium, in April 2012. Dr. Tseng discusses the need to study the use of research, a conceptual framework for doing so, and early findings and lessons from the field.
• Annotated Bibliography prepared by staff and updated in March 2011, which includes selected theoretical publications, empirical studies, and research syntheses that we have found useful for conceptualizing and studying the use of research evidence in policy and practice. Some of the publications are not in policy or practice areas directly relevant to youth, but they offer useful conceptual frameworks or research methods for studying research use in policy and practice affecting youth.

FROM OUR GRANTEES

• Asen, R. & Gurke, D. Investigating the Use of Research Evidence in Debates Over Education Policy (12 slides, 134KB PowerPoint). In this presentation, delivered at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, Asen and Gurke discuss lessons learned from their study, “How School Boards Weigh Research Findings in Policymaking.”
• Finnigan, K., Daly, A., & Che, J., The Acquisition and Use of Evidence District-wide (20 pages, 808KB PDF). This paper, presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, examines how low-performing schools and their district define, use, and diffuse research-based evidence. They discuss the types of evidence that are used, the sources for that evidence, and the role of networks as schools and districts engage with research.
• McDonnell, L.M. & Weatherford, M.S., Evidence Use and Stages of the Common Core Standards Movement (27 pages, 87KB PDF). This paper, presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, explores how the use of evidence varies as policy evolves with a focus on the development of the Common Core State Standards in K–12 mathematics and English-language arts.
• Massell, D. & Goertz, M.E., State Education Department Acquisition and Use of Research in School Improvement (31 pages, 567Kb PDF). This paper, presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, examines whether and how research-based and other types of knowledge are used by state education agencies to improve low-performing schools, and how these agencies are organized to manage and use such knowledge.
• Nelson, S.R., Leffler, J.C. & Hansen, B.A. Toward a research agenda for understanding and improving the use of research evidence, 2009. (80 pages, 514kb PDF) This report, published by NWREL, focuses on the conditions that influence the use of research evidence, other sources of evidence used in decision-making, and the factors that impede or facilitate the use of research evidence in educational policy and practice.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES 

• Bibliography prepared by the Forum for Youth Investment, which covers a broader terrain including reflection pieces, discussion papers, resources related to evidence-based policy and practice, efforts to produce stronger research evidence, and efforts to improve the use of research evidence.