Research-Practice Partnerships
Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) are an important part of the educational ecosystem that connects research, policy, practice, and community work in the United States. They are a prime example of how long-term collaborative approaches to research can address persistent challenges and systemic inequities in our schools and communities.
Farrell et al. (2021). Research-practice partnerships in education: The state of the field. William T. Grant Foundation.
A major focus of our work at NCRPP is engaging in inquiry and design related to Research-Practice Partnerships (RPPs). Our work in this area includes:
- Developing tools to support RPP practice
- Designing and conducting studies of RPPs
- Conducting literature reviews to understand the state of the field
- Conceptualizing and arguing for the potential of RPPs at the intersection of research and practice
- Ongoing collaboration with NNERPP (the National Network for Research Practice Partnerships), funders, and individual RPPs
Tools for RPPs
A major goal of our work related to RPPs is to advance resources through design, development, and testing of tools for engaging in, and using, educational research. To that end, recent work has involved development of the following tools:
Updated RPP Effectiveness Framework
Indicators of Research-Practice Partnership Health and Effectiveness: Updating the Five Dimensions Framework: Based on interviews and surveys, we updated the original 2017 framework developed by Henrick and colleagues to reflect the evolving field and an explicit emphasis on the role of equity and power dynamics within RPPs.
A Suite of Tools for RPPs
The RPP Health and Effectiveness Toolkit: We developed a suite of tools to support partnerships to reflect on their joint goals, consider possible next actions, and drive improvement within their partnerships in ways that will fuel educational change and the transformation of systems more broadly.
Validated Survey Scales
Using Evidence-Centered Design, we explored the potential validity of survey items for capturing RPP members' perspectives on the current practices of their partnership. We developed a suite of validated survey scales that align with the revised Dimensions of RPP Effectiveness. You can also read more about our survey development process and what we learned in these papers:
- Farrell, C. C., Penuel, W. R., Arce-Trigatti, P., Soland, J., Singleton, C., Resnick, A. F., ... & Schmidt, D. (2024). Designing measures of complex collaborations with participatory, evidence-centered design. Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics, 9, 1210547.
- Soland, J., Penuel, W. R., Farrell, C. C., & Wellberg, S. (2024). Developing a measure to evaluate education research-practice partnerships. Research Evaluation, 33, rvae042.
Research to Understand RPPs in Education
Over the years, we have sought to more deeply understand the particular dynamics and practices of RPPs through a range of lines of inquiry. A core assumption of our work is that rather than identifying "best" practices, there is a need to advance understanding of when, under which conditions, for whom, and with what tradeoffs RPPs make progress toward their goals.
Some of our recent research includes:
Examining particular dynamics and underlying conceptions:
- Riedy, R., & Penuel, W. R. (2024). Dignity-affirming care in research-practice partnerships. Peabody Journal of Education, 1-15.
- Farrell, C. C., Singleton, C., Stamatis, K., Riedy, R., Arce-Trigatti, P., & Penuel, W. R. (2023). Conceptions and practices of equity in research-practice partnerships. Educational Policy, 37(1), 200-224.
Chicago
Understanding the "State of the Field"
- Farrell, C. C., Penuel, W. R., Coburn, C. E., Daniel, J., & Steup, L. (2021). Research-practice partnerships in education: The state of the field. William T. Grant Foundation.
Conceptualizing the Potential of RPPs
- Farrell, C. C., Penuel, W. R., Allen, A., Anderson, E. R., Bohannon, A. X., Coburn, C. E., & Brown, S. L. (2022). Learning at the boundaries of research and practice: A framework for understanding research–practice partnerships. Educational Researcher, 51(3), 197-208.
- Coburn, C. E., Penuel, W. R., & Farrell, C. C. (2021). Fostering educational improvement with research-practice partnerships. Phi Delta Kappan, 102(7), 14-19.
Other NCRPP Research on RPPs
- Penuel, W. R., Furtak, E. M., & Farrell, C. (2021). Practice partnerships in education: advancing an evolutionary logic of systems improvement. DDS–Die Deutsche Schule, 113(1), 45-62.
- Penuel, W.R., Allen, A., Coburn, C.E., & Farrell, C. (2015) Conceptualizing research–practice partnerships as joint work at boundaries, Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR), 20(1-2), 182-197
- Coburn, C.E., Penuel, W.R., & Geil, K.E. (2013). Research-practice partnerships: A strategy for leveraging research for educational improvement in school districts. William T. Grant Foundation.