Bridging the gap between research and practice: Predicting what will work locally
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This article addresses the gap between what works in research and what works in practice. Currently, research in evidence-based education policy and practice focuses on randomized controlled trials. These can support causal ascriptions (“It worked”) but provide little basis for local effectiveness predictions (“It will work here”), which are what matter for practice. We argue that moving from ascription to prediction by way of causal generalization (“It works”) is unrealistic and urge focusing research efforts directly on how to build local effectiveness predictions. We outline various kinds of information that can improve predictions and encourage using methods better equipped for acquiring that information. We compare our proposal with others advocating a better mix of methods, like implementation science, improvement science, and practice-based evidence.
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Interventions that have worked in one setting or context often do not work across other settings, particularly in school contexts, because of wide-ranging contextual and cultural factors influencing implementation.
“interventions that have worked in one setting or context too often do not work across other settings, particularly in school contexts [14], given the wide ranging contextual and cultural factors influencing implementation [15].”
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- Authors
- Joyce, K. E., & Cartwright, N.
- Affiliations
- University of California San Diego (US)
- Durham University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Cartwright, Nancy
- Venue
- American Educational Research Journal
- Published
- 2019-08
- Volume
- 57
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 1045-1082
- ISSN
- 0002-8312 (ISSN-L)
- 1935-1011
- OpenAlex
- W2966359812
- Cited by
- 169
- References
- 96
- Citations by year
- 2026: 22 · 2025: 27 · 2024: 43 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 8.22
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- Licence
- Locations
- American Educational Research Journal (publishedVersion)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (acceptedVersion)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Center for Ethics & Education
- H2020 European Research Council (667526 K4U)
- National Science Foundation (1632471)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Evaluation and Performance Assessment
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Policy Implementation Science
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Advanced Causal Inference Techniques
- Keywords
- research-practice gap, evidence-based education policy, effectiveness prediction, causal generalization, randomized controlled trials, implementation science, improvement science, practice-based evidence
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