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Critical Perspectives

  • Kara Finnigan: The Political and Social Contexts of Research Evidence Use in Partnerships
  • Ruth Stewart et al.: Transforming evidence for policy: do we have the evidence generation house in order?
  • Mark Rickinson and Marcia McKenzie: Understanding the research-policy relationship in ESE: insights from the critical policy and evidence use literatures
  • David E. Kirkland: No Small Matters: Reimagining the Use of Research Evidence From A Racial Justice Perspective
  • Caitlin Farrell, et al.: Conceptions and Practices of Equity in Research-Practice Partnerships
  • Fabienne Doucet: Centering the Margins: (Re)defining Useful Research Evidence Through Critical Perspectives
  • Karen Bogenschneider: Engaging Policymakers: A New Era of Research and Theory That Builds on the Basics

Methodological Perspectives

  • Itzhak Yanovitzky: Why Should We Study the Use of Research Evidence as a Behavior?
  • Mark Rickinson, et al.: Using Research Well: A Framework for Understanding Quality Use of Research Evidence
  • William Penuel and Anna-Ruth Allen: To Study Conceptual Use of Research, Consider Tradeoffs Among Methods
  • Zachary P. Neal et al.: Just Google it: measuring schools’ use of research evidence with internet search results
  • Jennifer Lawlor, et al.: Approaches to measuring use of research evidence in K-12 settings: A systematic review
  • Drew Gitomer and Kevin Crouse: Studying the Use of Research Evidence: A Review of Methods
  • Barbara Davidson, Julie Greenberg, and Susan Pimental: Avoiding Confirmation Bias When Implementing Evidence-Based Instructional Practices
  • Max Crowley and Taylor Scott: Congressional Use of Evidence Can Be Improved: Reflections from a Trial of the Research-to-Policy Collaboration Model
  • Karen Bogenschneider: Fresh Insights on Measuring Research Use: Policymaker Perspectives on How Theory Falls Short
  • Lorraine McDonnell and Stephen Weatherford: Expanding the Definition of Evidence in Studies on the Use of Research Evidence in Policy
  • Drew Gitomer and Kevin Crouse: Studying the Use of Research Evidence: A Review of Methods

Historical and Current Concepts

  • Vivian Tseng and Cynthia Coburn: Using Evidence in the US
  • Vivian Tseng: Research on Research Use: Building Theory, Empirical Evidence, and a Global Field (WT Grant Digest, Issue 7)
  • Larry V. Hedges: Challenges in building usable knowledge in education
  • Elizabeth N. Farley-Ripple, Kathryn Oliver and Annette Boaz: Mapping the community: use of research evidence in policy and practice
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Karen Bogenschneider: Fresh Insights on Measuring Research Use: Policymaker Perspectives on How Theory Falls Short

Social science has done well in providing empirical studies that depict how research is used in policymaking. Yet it has performed less well in another contribution science can make—developing explanatory theoretical frameworks that predict and promote future research use (Ness, 2010). For those who conduct theory-driven research studies, Carol Weiss (1999) raised a provocative question two decades ago that remains relevant today: Have researchers been groping around in the dark looking in the wrong places for the wrong purposes for the wrong reasons? Weiss claimed that some research contributions are not “easy to see” and may “not be visible to the naked eye” (Weiss, 1986, p. 217).

Existing studies have focused disproportionately on the supply side of research utilization—the conduct and communication of research to policymakers—with far less attention to the demand side—the uses to which policymakers put research (Gamoran, 2018; Tseng, 2012). To shed light on the demand side, Elizabeth Day, Emily Parrott, and I revisited existing theory by turning to policymakers themselves for their perspectives on how research contributes to policymaking. We compared how policymakers said they used research with the predictions of four prominent theories of research utilization. What we learned is that Weiss’s words may have been prophetic: If researchers rely only on existing theories to measure research use, they may be missing what policymakers see as important contributions to their decisions and to the policy process.

Citation: Bogenschneider, K. (2020). Fresh Insights on Measuring Research Use: Policymaker Perspectives on How Theory Falls Short. New York: William T Grant Foundation.

decision-making, measuring research evidence use, policymakers, policymaking, research use