Implementing Educational Innovations at Scale: Transforming Researchers Into Continuous Improvement Scientists

Item

Title

Implementing Educational Innovations at Scale: Transforming Researchers Into Continuous Improvement Scientists

Abstract/Description

There is growing concern among researchers and governmental officials that knowing what works in education is important, but not enough for school improvement. Sound evidence alone is not sufficient for large-scale, sustainable change, both because practitioners may consider it irrelevant to their own problems of practice or run into challenges when they try to implement. Failed attempts at replicating positive outcomes in new (or simply expanded) settings underscore the need for a different relationship between research and practice, one that takes a systemic perspective on improvement and transforms the role for research. In this article, we describe the new science of improvement and where it sits in the evolution of research on education policy implementation. We discuss the roots of the approach as well as its key features. We explain how the work differs from that of traditional research and end with illustrations of this difference from our experiences with the National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools.

Author/creator

Cohen-Vogel, Lora

Tichnor-Wagner, Ariel

Allen, Danielle

Harrison, Christopher

Kainz, Kirsten

Socol, Allison Rose

Wang, Qi

Date

2015

In publication

Educational Policy

Volume

29

Issue

1

Pages

257-277

Resource type

Research/Scholarly Media

Resource status/form

en Published Text

Scholarship genre

en Methodological

en Empirical

Keywords

continuous improvement

improvement science

education policy implementation

scale

IRE Approach/Concept

Improvement at Scale

Continuous Improvement

Scale Up

Improvement Science

Policy Implementation

Plan Do Study Act (PDSA) Cycle

Featured case/project

National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools (NCSU)

Primary national context

United States

Language

English

Open access/full-text available

en Yes

Peer reviewed

Yes

ISSN

8959048

DOI

10.1177/0895904814560886

URL

Publisher Webpage

ERIC Webpage (#ED595047)

Open Access PDF (via ERIC)

Grant funding

Institute of Education Sciences (IES), U.S. Department of Education

Grant number

IES Grant #R305E100030

Citation

Cohen-Vogel, L., Tichnor-Wagner, A., Allen, D., Harrison, C., Kainz, K., Socol, A. R., & Wang, Q. (2015). Implementing Educational Innovations at Scale: Transforming Researchers Into Continuous Improvement Scientists. Educational Policy, 29(1), 257-277. PAIS Index; Research Library. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904814560886

Cited in

Cross-National Research on Continuous Improvement

Scale and Sustainability of Education Innovation and Improvement

Item sets

Open Access Resource (IRE)

OB Citations - Cross National Research on Continuous Improvement

OB Citations - Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Evaluating Improvement Networks

Ob Citations - Research–Practice Partnerships in Education Within the United States

OB Citations - Scale and Sustainability of Education Innovation and Improvement

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