The Education Schools Project has released a new study focused on the preparation of educational researchers. A summary is available in Education Week.
The conclusion – researchers are poorly prepared in an era more focused on evidence and even a greater public appetite for proof. The result – a series of untested and poorly formulated reform proposals based on ideology rather than data.
Among the problems:
- researchers often prepared by faculty with little personal research experience, and
- need for faculty and an expectation that most institutions promote research results in the hiring of many with poor credentials.
Some ideas:
- reserve the Ph.D. for researchers, and
- focus research expectations in fewer institutions.
To some of these ideas I would add –
It is much more difficult to do applied research than some may assume. Opportunities to work in schools are difficult to secure because of the imposition such research requires. It is even more difficult to conduct research involving expected standards of random assignment and control. Creating the right circumstances for meaningful classroom studies is very costly and funds for such efforts are generally very limited. While the preparation of researchers is certainly an issue, meaningful research requires the cooperation of institution outside of higher education.
