A better research-practice partnership

Henrick, Erin; Muñoz, Marco A.; Cobb, Paul

doi:10.1177/0031721716677258

Cited by 23 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…In most traditional research projects, for example, researchers are expected to remain at arm’s length from implementation of interventions, for fear of disrupting the results. In RPPs, however, researchers can be active participants in implementation and adaptation decisions (Henrick, Munoz, & Cobb, 2016). Similarly, in traditional research projects, educators are often treated as research participants or consumers.…”

Section: The Need To Focus On Role Negotiation In Rppsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“What the Hell Is This, and Who the Hell Are You?” Role and Identity Negotiation in Research-Practice Partnerships

Farrell

Harrison

Coburn³

2019

AERA Open

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In research-practice partnerships (RPPs), the line between researcher and practitioner can be blurred, and the roles for everyone involved may be unclear. Yet little is known about how these roles are negotiated and with what consequences for collaborative efforts. Guided by organizational theory, we share findings from a multiyear case study of one RPP, drawing on observations of partnership leadership meetings and interviews with school district leaders and partners. Role negotiation occurred in more than one third of leadership meetings, as evidenced by identity-referencing discourse. When roles were unclear, collaborative efforts stalled; once partners renegotiated their roles, it changed how they engaged in the work together. Several forces contributed to these dynamics, including the partner’s ambitious yet ambiguous identity and the introduction of new members to the group. This study offers implications for those engaged in partnership work and provides a foundation for future research regarding role negotiation in RPPs.

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Section: The Need To Focus On Role Negotiation In Rppsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“What the Hell Is This, and Who the Hell Are You?” Role and Identity Negotiation in Research-Practice Partnerships

Farrell

Harrison

Coburn³

2019

AERA Open

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“…Navigating the politics of RPPs is a challenge for which most researchers have little preparation from their graduate programs (Ghiso et al, 2019). Because researchers in RPPs can be important participants in decisions regarding interventions, lines can become blurry (Farrell et al, 2019; Henrick et al, 2016). Perhaps one of the biggest lessons I learned over time was that the politics of RPP work is challenging as the political winds in a local school district can shift swiftly and frequently.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the Quality of Education Research Through Its Relevance to Practice: An Integrative Review of Research-Practice Partnerships

Welsh

2021

Review of Research in Education

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The contemporary social, economic, and cultural conditions within and outside the academy prompt important questions about the role of research in education policy and practice. Scholars have framed research-practice partnerships (RPPs) as a strategy to promote evidence-based decision-making in education. In this chapter, I interrogate the notion that RPPs offer an insightful framework to consider how the quality of research can be measured through its use. The findings suggest that using RPPs to assess the quality of education research enhances the relevance to policy and practice as well as attention to the quality of reporting, and pivots from the preeminence of methodological quality. RPPs increase local education leaders’ access to research and bolster the use of research. RPPs may also strengthen the alignment between education research and the public good. Notwithstanding, employing RPPs as a vehicle to assess research quality has its challenges. Valuing the work of RPPs in academia is a work in progress. Building and sustaining an RPP is challenging, and there is still much to learn about the ways in which RPPs work and overcome obstacles. Assessing the impact of RPPs is also difficult. Future considerations are discussed.

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“…They use intentional strategies to foster mutualism, including negotiating the focus of the collaboration and generating co-design processes (Coburn & Penuel, 2016). For example, in the Middle School Mathematics and the Institutional Setting of Teaching (MIST) partnership, researchers from Vanderbilt University collaborated with four large urban districts in an eight-year design research partnership, aiming to advance ambitious middle school mathematics instruction (Henrick et al, 2016). The researchers studied the districts' improvement strategies and their implementation in schools and provided district leaders with ongoing, timely feedback that supported decision-making.…”

Section: Research-practice Partnershipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dilemmas of Leadership and Capacity Building in a Research–Practice Partnership

Vedder‐Weiss

Lefstein

Segal

et al. 2020

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Background Research–practice partnerships (RPPs) are proliferating in education, generating increasing interest and posing many challenges. In this study, we shed light on the challenge of supporting practitioners> leadership and building capacity in an RPP. In the RPP literature, practitioner leadership is often highlighted as both a way to improve design development and enactment and as imperative for capacity building and sustainability. However, cultivating leadership also creates challenges which have not yet been adequately explored. Purpose We explore these challenges and related dilemmas in a large-scale Israeli RPP designed to cultivate teacher leadership and build district capacity. We investigate how local actors asserted their leadership, the resources they drew upon, and the dilemmas this posed for us as researchers in an RPP. We critically reflect on how we addressed these dilemmas, and the consequences and implications of our courses of action. Setting This study explores our partnership with two large Israeli districts, as part of a state-wide professional development reform supported by the Ministry of Education and a philanthropic foundation. The partnership aims to support teachers> collaborative, reflective inquiry on teaching and learning, in weekly in-school meetings facilitated by in-school leading teacher. The partnership began six years ago and currently includes 158 schools (458 leading teachers). Research Design We use linguistic ethnographic methods to analyze leadership assertion in three focal cases, representing three different leadership roles, at different levels of the system: (1) a leading teacher demonstrating creative non-compliance in the team meetings she facilitated, (2) a coach exercising her voice and authority in her professional development workshops, (3) and a district manager independently shaping structures. Data Collection Data were collected during the first three years of the RPP, including (participant) observations, audio-recordings, and field notes of in-school meetings, professional development workshops, interviews, and informal conversations. Findings and Conclusions The analysis shows that leadership assertion played an important role in constructing actors’ identities as competent leaders but posed dilemmas for us, such as how to acknowledge leaders> expertise while also maintaining program integrity. The case studies underscore the difficulties involved in managing a partnership in a large-scale educational intervention and the challenges to maintaining productive dialogue with different partners. The paper advances our understanding of the complexities involved in supporting leadership at different levels of the system, in day-to-day interaction, and at multiple micro and macro contexts in which it unfolds, in particular in a large-scale RPP.

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A better research-practice partnership

Cited by 23 publications

References 3 publications

“What the Hell Is This, and Who the Hell Are You?” Role and Identity Negotiation in Research-Practice Partnerships

“What the Hell Is This, and Who the Hell Are You?” Role and Identity Negotiation in Research-Practice Partnerships

Assessing the Quality of Education Research Through Its Relevance to Practice: An Integrative Review of Research-Practice Partnerships

Dilemmas of Leadership and Capacity Building in a Research–Practice Partnership

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