The Federal Role in Educational Research and Development

Abstract

and disseminating educational statistics for more than 130 years. Over time the focus has shifted from data gathering to research and development (R&D) to find more effective ways of educating children. Educational research and development, however, has not been held in high esteem by most academics and policymakers in the twentieth century. 1 Policymakers have usually downplayed the value of supporting longterm research and development compared with providing immediate and direct assistance to local schools. When the sciences and social sciences were called upon to increase their contributions during World War II, the U.S. Office of Education (USOE) scaled back its support of educational research and development. 2 However, as it became increasingly evident in the mid-1960s that adequate knowledge was lacking about how to improve the schooling of poor children, the Johnson administration and Congress supported larger investments in long-term educational research and development. 3 The need for federal involvement in educational research, development, and statistics has increased today. Analysts and policymakers are slowly and reluctantly acknowledging that many of the basic federal compensatory education programs established in the 1960s are not as effective as originally hoped. Large-scale, popular federal educational initiatives such as Title I and Head Start probably do offer assistance for some disadvantaged students. But these programs have not provided the same educational

Scientific Culture and Educational Research

“…22 This section draws mostly from NRC ( 2002), chapter 6. 23 The NRC committee concurs with those who have argued that the enterprise has been significantly hamstrung by a lack of resources (NRC, 1999(NRC, , 2001 President's Committee of Advisers on Science and Technology, 1997; Shavelson & Berliner, 1988;Vinovskis, 2000). Funding has not been aligned historically with the intended scope of the educational research enterprise, and the current breadth of the educational research agenda warrants sustained increases into the future if it is to meet its mandate.…”

Neuroscience and education: Mind the gap

“…Kaestle (1993) opened a review of the field with the question “why is the reputation of education research so awful?”, concluding that it is perceived as irrelevant, politicized and in constant disarray. A decade later, Burkhardt and Schoenfeld (2003) suggested that the reputation of education research may have become even worse, asserting that ‘education research does not have much credibility—even among its intended clients, teachers and administrators.” Vinovskis (2000) concurred with this assessment, commenting that “much of the quality of research and development produced by education researchers is regarded by academics in other behavioral and social science disciplines as second-rate methodologically and conceptually.” Hamilton (2002), in an historical review of education research in the UK, concluded that “the ‘vagaries’, caveats or contingencies that haunted educational research before 1952 (e.g., problems in inference, survey analysis and experimental design) were joined by a new set of procedural problems during the lifetime of the British Journal of Educational Studies (1952–2002).” McWilliam and Lee (2006) discussed the perceived problems of educational research from an Australian perspective, noting that a tendency to conduct qualitative rather than quantitative research, “largely driven by individual choice… and personal beliefs,” has hindered the incremental and systematic growth of knowledge databases. Lagemann (1997), in a wide-raging historical review of American educational research, concluded that “sustained agreement about the methods and focus of the field” has been precluded by “continuing contests among different groups, especially scholars of education, scholars in other fields and disciplines, school administrators and teachers.” A relative lack of progress in education research compared to other disciplines can be attributed to these inter-disciplinary conflicts (Lagemann, 1997).…”

“…A decade later, Burkhardt and Schoenfeld (2003) suggested that the reputation of education research may have become even worse, asserting that 'education research does not have much credibility-even among its intended clients, teachers and administrators.'' Vinovskis (2000) concurred with this assessment, commenting that ''much of the quality of research and development produced by education researchers is regarded by academics in other behavioral and social science disciplines as second-rate methodologically and conceptually.' ' Hamilton (2002), in an historical review of education research in the UK, concluded that ''the 'vagaries', caveats or contingencies that haunted educational research before 1952 (e.g., problems in inference, survey analysis and experimental design) were joined by a new set of procedural problems during the lifetime of the British Journal of Educational Studies (1952Studies ( -2002.…”