The goal of the Inquiry Synthesis Project was to synthesize findings from research conducted between 1984 and 2002 to address the research question, What is the impact of inquiry science instruction on K-12 student outcomes? The timeframe of 1984 to 2002 was selected to continue a line of synthesis work last completed in 1983 by Bredderman [Bredderman [1983] Review of Educational Research 53: 499-518] and Shymansky, Kyle, and Alport [Shymansky et al. [1983] Journal of Research in Science Teaching 20: 387-404], and to accommodate a practicable cutoff date given the research project timeline, which ran from 2001 to 2006. The research question for the project was addressed by developing a conceptual framework that clarifies and specifies what is meant by ''inquiry-based science instruction,'' and by using a mixed-methodology approach to analyze both numerical and text data describing the impact of instruction on K-12 student science conceptual learning. Various findings across 138 analyzed studies indicate a clear, positive trend favoring inquiry-based instructional practices, particularly instruction that emphasizes student active thinking and drawing conclusions from data. Teaching strategies that actively engage students in the learning process through scientific investigations are more likely to increase conceptual understanding than are strategies that rely on more passive techniques, which are often necessary in the current standardized-assessment laden educational environment. ß

There is a growing recognition of the value of measuring fidelity of implementation (FOI) as a necessary part of evaluating interventions. However, evaluators do not have a shared conceptual understanding of what FOI is and how to measure it. Thus, the creation of FOI measures is typically a secondary focus and based on specific contexts and programs. This article describes a project that holds the development of FOI measures as its primary goal and has developed a suite of data collection tools designed to be used across multiple programs. It describes the foundation of the suite—a conceptual framework for clearly and specifically describing FOI and the need for the framework. It also describes where the framework resides in existing literature and how it can be used to support measurement of interventions in education and other fields.

Background: Inclusive STEM (traditionally known to stand for "Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math") high schools are emerging across the country as a mechanism for improving STEM education and getting more and diverse students into STEM majors and careers. However, there is no consensus on what these schools are or should be, making it difficult to both evaluate their effectiveness and scale successful models. We addressed this problem by working with inclusive STEM high school leaders and stakeholders to articulate and understand their intended school models. This "bottom-up" approach is in contrast with other studies that have taken a "top-down," literature-based approach to defining STEM schools. Results: Through this process, we identified 76 critical components of STEM schools and derived a theoretical framework of eight elements that represent the common goals and strategies employed by inclusive STEM high schools across the country: Personalization of Learning; Problem-Based Learning; Rigorous Learning; Career, Technology, and Life Skills; School Community and Belonging; External Community; Staff Foundations; and External Factors. This framework offers a clear picture of what exactly inclusive STEM schools are and common language for both researchers and practitioners. Interestingly, STEM disciplinary content did not emerge as a defining component across school models.

Over many decades, educators have developed countless interventions and theories about how to create lasting change. Implementation research is the study of these efforts with a set of basic questions: What are we doing? Is it working? For whom? Where? When? How? And, Why? In other words, implementation research is an endeavor to understand if and how educational efforts are accomplishing their goals. This chapter describes the landscape of implementation research, tracing it back to its historical roots and connecting it to other fields with the aim of identifying common threads across diverse efforts. The authors survey where the field is today and highlight different perspectives on complex questions that have long troubled researchers. They outline some of the sticky issues ahead and make a case for shared conceptual clarity and clearly communicated and understood language that will help researchers understand how various bodies of implementation research work are related. The authors conclude by describing the opportunity presented to the education research community in this moment: to capitalize on and learn from historical and contemporary work in education and other fields, and to identify connections across theories and approaches and find ways to collectively move forward toward the shared goal of making education better.