Research-practice Partnerships Research Articles

Adaptations to a statewide walking program: Use of iterative feedback cycles between research and delivery systems improves fit for over 10 years.

FitEx is an 8-week, group-based physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption program co-created and implemented with the Cooperative Extension System. Effectiveness and delivery personnel perceptions of the program are promising; however, ongoing adaptations are required to continuously meet shifting needs of both researchers and delivery systems. We applied the APDER iterative cycles of implementation over 15 years to understand dynamic and ongoing adaptations as well as implications for FitEx sustainability. Each year, an IRPP between delivery (FitEx deliverers) and research (FitEx developers) systems shared feedback on program core elements and strategies for adaptation through regular team meetings, emails, and evaluations. While the core elements (delivering to groups, goal setting, feedback, and self-monitoring) of FitEx remained consistent, changes were made to address logistical factors, emergent research questions, and technological advancements. For example, program deliverers suggested decreasing training time and making program content available on demand rather than through traditional in-person training. Using APDER with a long-standing IRPP allowed the delivery system to provide feedback to program developers to co-create ongoing adaptations and data-driven decisions. Future work in response to shifting needs includes Fitbit integration and technological updates to the usability of the FitEx platform. Our aim is to report the 15+ years of applying the Assess, Plan, Do, Evaluate, Report (APDER) process with an integrated research-practice partnership (IRPP) for co-creation of ongoing adaptations of FitEx and to share methods for capturing relevant data for decision-making to integrate health promotion programs in community settings.

The Winds of Changes: How Research Alliances Respond to and Manage Shifting Field-Level Logics

Research alliances, like other research-practice partnerships (RPPs), aim to bridge the historic divide between educational research and practice and improve education in particular local contexts. Yet, although these demands reflect multiple and contested field-level logics, little prior research has examined the ways these logics impact the work of RPPs. This longitudinal, qualitative study explores the field-level logics that dominated the local contexts of two research alliances; how these logics shifted over time; and how research alliances responded to these shifts. Results show that field-level logics of research, practice, and community contended in both local contexts, and that alliance design, resources, and local contexts shaped research alliances’ efforts to respond to and manage shifting demands.

The (In)Consistency of Teacher Survey Responses About Teacher Evaluation Implementation: Implications for Principal Professional Development

Principals can affect several consequential schooling processes and outcomes. However, their effectiveness varies substantially and is distributed across schools inequitably, underscoring the importance of effective principal professional development (PPD), which begins by using needs assessments to inform PPD content. A researcher-practitioner partnership assessed principal needs via monthly teacher surveys about specific teacher evaluation skills. While internal consistencies were high, test-rest reliabilities were low, implying that reports regarding the quality of specific principal practices may fluctuate substantially over short periods, potentially hampering the design of effective PPD.

Recommendations for Writing a National Institutes of Health Individual Predoctoral Fellowship (F31) Training Grant in Dissemination and Implementation Science.

Early career training is an essential component of building the future of dissemination and implementation (D&I) science. The United States National Institutes of Health Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship (F31) award offers a mechanism for doctoral students to acquire specialized D&I training and mentorship, to pursue independent research in D&I science, and to receive financial support for their graduate studies. Due to scarce resources on preparing early career grant proposals focused on D&I science, this commentary offers guidance to doctoral students on developing a successful application for a specific type of early career proposal - the NIH F31 mechanism. We offer strategies for the research and training components based on themes identified across six funded F31 grant applications and on our experiences in the application process (grants funded from 2019-2020). We are from diverse fields (clinical psychology, school psychology, public health, and epidemiology) with varied research foci (global health, mental health, and infectious diseases). Applications were funded on both the F31 and F31-Diversity mechanisms. Funded F31 research projects included dissemination strategies, treatment adaptions, piloting new methods, and pre-implementation inquiry. Common training goals included developing content expertise in D&I science, understanding specific D&I science methodologies, learning strategies for working with community partners, and enhancing knowledge of analytic methods. D&I training activities included journal clubs, meeting with consultants, attending D&I science trainings, and attending conferences. Mentored research training is essential for learning D&I science methods and developing research-practice partnerships as students.

An Adapted Collaborative Care Model to Manage Co-morbidities of Depression and Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases in Rwanda

BackgroundThe World Health Organization has recommended the implementation of the Collaborative Care Model in all countries to manage the comorbidities of depression and chronic non-communicable diseases. In Rwanda depression is major problem not only among patients with chronic illnesses but also in general population considering the unique history of war and genocide in Rwanda.PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe the process of adaptation and testing of the Collaborative Care Model in the Rwandan healthcare context.MethodsThe larger study used the Action Research design with mixed method –sequential explanatory design. A research-practice partnership method and an iterative process was used to adapt and test the Collaborative Care Model. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the data.ResultsFour structural components to the model were adapted including the addition of a registered nurse to the team, relocation of the model to the district level, consultation with a psychiatrist every 3 months and involvement of community health workers. The evaluation indicated that the model was applicable and acceptable.ConclusionsInitial evaluation of the Adapted Collaborative Care Model shows promise in Rwanda. Implementation of this model in other Rwandan districts is warranted.Rwanda J Med Health Sci 2023;6(2):154-160

Measuring social and emotional learning implementation in a research-practice partnership.

The measurement of social and emotional learning (SEL) implementation is a critical part of enhancing and understanding the effects of SEL programming. Research has shown that high-quality SEL implementation is associated with social, emotional, and academic outcomes. Schools achieve these outcomes in part through organizational practices that emphasize ongoing communication, collaboration, coordination, shared decision making, and strategic planning, processes that are ideally informed by evidence. The application of implementation science to SEL has advanced our understanding of the role of implementation in achieving student outcomes. However, the development of practical approaches for measuring and supporting SEL implementation have lagged behind work on measuring student SEL outcomes. Research-practitioner partnerships (RPP), long-term, mutually-beneficial collaborations geared toward identifying problems of practice and testing solutions for improvement, are a promising means for addressing this important gap. Though implementation science and RPPs have complementary aims, there has been limited attention to the integration of these approaches in the context of SEL programming. The goal of this paper is to offer practical strategies for measuring and using SEL implementation data in schools, using the example of an RPP that used implementation science practices to guide SEL implementation. We give special attention to structures that can support the collection and use of implementation data to improve practice, as well as considerations around developing measures, considering trade-offs of data collection decisions, and conducting data analysis.

Research-practice partnership: supporting rural cancer survivors in Montana.

The objective of this Research-Practice Partnership was to disseminate and implement strategies to assist Community Health Centers in improving the care of rural cancer survivors in Montana. Funded by the National Cancer Institute's Community Outreach and Engagement mechanism, this project utilized the MAP-IT (Mobilize, Assess, Plan, Implement, Track) program planning framework from Healthy People 2020. Partners included Montana's Department of Public Health and Human Services' Cancer Control Program, Montana Primary Care Association, One Health Community Health Center, and Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah. Project activities focused on (1) Planning, creating, implementing, and evaluating provider/care team education sessions through the Project ECHO tele-mentoring platform and through short webinars and (2) Building processes for identifying, documenting, and connecting with survivors using electronic health records (EHRs) and other resources. Lessons learned from this project include the value of aligning partner goals from the outset to foster sustained commitment, the importance of adapting implementation plans to address challenges and leverage opportunities, and the need for accurate EHR data and formal processes for identifying and engaging with cancer survivors.

Centring Teacher Voices in School-Wide Improvement: Possibilities and Challenges of Introducing Change in Complex Systems

ABSTRACTThis study aims to unveil the complexity of introducing and sustaining instructional improvement at a school site by documenting successes and challenges encountered by a research-practice partnership among university researchers, school and district leaders, and a mathematics coordinator from the county office of education. The study answers two questions: How did a research-practice partnership attend to teachers’ voices and craft coherence around a school’s mathematics teaching improvement goals? What characterised the complexity of sustaining the improvement efforts? Data included meeting fieldnotes, teacher survey responses, and transcripts of interviews with teachers, school and district leaders, and the county coordinator. Qualitative thematic analyses revealed several ways in which the team attended to teacher voices and crafted coherence dynamically through interactions supported by tools and activities aimed at surfacing complexity and creating a shared vision. Points of convergence included a focus on adult learning and collaboration. Analyses also unveiled challenges, including the emotional work entailed in instructional change and the necessity to buffer the school from conflicting external demands. Conclusions highlight the importance of deliberate negotiation of tensions and crafting of coherence so that stakeholders can more easily build a shared vision for high-quality classroom teaching and high-quality teacher learning.

Towards pedagogical content knowledge learning trajectories: tracing elementary teachers’ infusion of computational thinking

ABSTRACT This paper documents the Making CT researcher-practitioner partnership, designed to support in-service elementary teachers in understanding and integrating computational thinking into their disciplinary teaching. Drawing from this collaborative work with teachers, over a sustained time, we describe the shifts in teachers’ integration of CT into their teaching, as well as shifts in their abilities to attend to children’s development of CT skills. In doing so, we have developed a unique construct – pedagogical content knowledge learning trajectories – which draws from literature on learning trajectories, the use of learning trajectories for teacher professional development, and domains of knowledge for teaching. Operationalizing our construct, we propose two specific learning trajectories – first, for integrating CT into disciplinary teaching, and second, for attending to students’ computational thinking – which we describe and illustrate using data from the Making CT teachers. This includes a description of professional learning experiences that supported teacher growth on each of the two learning trajectories, thus explicating the knowledge gained and classroom impact from participation in the Making CT project. Our learning trajectories can be used to plan for CT-specific teacher professional development and our pedagogical content knowledge learning trajectory construct can be applied to additional contexts.

Developing digital resilience: An educational intervention improves elementary students’ response to digital challenges

The central role of technologies like social media and smartphones in children's lives means that learning to navigate the digital world is now a core developmental task for elementary school students. While access to the Internet affords children the potential to find connections at scale, it can also expose them to potential threats like privacy violations and online aggression. In this study, we report on the results of an educational intervention that aimed to improve students’ ability to respond adaptively to these challenges - a concept we discuss as digital resilience. The intervention was co-designed with the non-profit organization My Digital Tat2 and administered to 566 elementary school students. Results showed that the intervention improved students’ digital skills, self-efficacy with technology, intentions of being an upstander to support peers online, and willingness to seek help for difficult situations from trusted adults. Compared to their baseline, students were not only better prepared to evaluate digital information and stand up for themselves online, but also more willing to give and receive support for digital challenges. Our results speak to the potential for research-practice partnerships to create developmentally appropriate interventions that equip students with the skills, self-efficacy, and support structures needed to harness the benefits of technologies, while being informed and resilient to its dangers.

A Research-Practice Partnership to Introduce Computer Science in Secondary School: Lessons from a Pilot Program

Context Introducing Computer Science (CS) into formal education can be challenging, notably when considering the numerous stakeholders involved which include the students, teachers, schools, and policy makers. We believe these perspectives should be considered conjointly, which is possible within Research Practice Partnerships (RPPs) . RPPs look to bridge research-practice gaps and have seen an increase in the field of education and CS-education. Unfortunately, RPPs are considered to be under-researched, in addition to presenting their own challenges. Objectives To the purpose of assessing how RPPs may support the successful introduction of CS into formal education, we investigate three perspectives (students, teachers, and RPP stakeholders) and their interplay within the context of a multi-institution RPP conducting a pilot program to introduce CS to secondary school students. Methods A mixed methods analysis was employed to triangulate data in a concurrent triangulation design. The data included (i) three surveys distributed over the semester to 106 grade 9 students (ages 12-14), (ii) four teacher-journals, (iii) two interviews and four focus groups with the teachers and representatives of the partner institutions. Findings From the students’ perspective , while their self-efficacy increased, their motivation decreased throughout the semester due to a miss-match between their expectations and the course. The findings also indicate that gender biases and heterogeneity are already present in grade 9. From the teachers’ perspective , co-constructing the study plan, having access to regular support and collaborating within a community of practice when starting to teach CS all facilitated the teachers’ experience. Finally, from the RPP’s perspective the collaboration between stakeholders and having researchers evaluate the program were considered to be key elements in the pilot program. However, there appears to be a research-practice gap, in large part due to limited interactions between researchers and curriculum designers, and researchers and the teachers in the field. Conclusions From the students’ perspective it appears relevant to introduce CS (i) prior to secondary school to address motivation and bias-related issues early on, and (ii) to all students to avoid participation being motivation-, stereotype-, or belief-driven, and risk broadening the gap between students, (iii) all the while being attentive to course format and content to ensure that the course meets students’ expectations and fosters autonomous motivation. From the teachers’ perspective , while the support provided met the teachers’ needs, it is essential to find means of scaling such approaches when looking to deploy CS-curricular reforms to entire administrative regions. Finally, from the RPP’s perspective (i) teachers’ should be given a voice in the RPP to better align with the field, and (ii) researchers’ roles should be reconsidered to move beyond being only evaluators, and towards having a more co-constructive role in setting up the curricular reform. Recommendations are provided for researchers and practitioners involved in CS curricular reforms.

Collaborative capacity-building for collective evaluation: a case study with informal science education centers

ABSTRACT This paper reports on the results of a research-practice partnership that included a U.S. university research team and a state-funded grants program that supports informal science education. The goal of the 2-year partnership was to develop an empirically-tested model for collaboration and capacity-building (CCB) in support of collective evaluation. The model was implemented with 23 informal science education (ISE) organizations across one U.S. state. A comparison of pre and post-surveys indicate that the goals of the CCB model were attained. Participants reported an (1) increased perception of a common agenda, (2) increased capacity for conducting evaluation, and (3) increased peer-peer engagement. Participants also highlighted ongoing barriers to collective evaluation and suggested specific supports to overcome these barriers. This collaborative capacity-building model, although tested with ISE providers, is generalizable to other collective evaluation efforts.

A Knowledge Mobilization Framework: Toward Evidence-Based Statistical Communication Practices in Education Research

The evidence-based decision-making movement often assumes that once evidence is available (e.g., via the What Works Clearinghouse), decision-makers will integrate it into their practice. Research-practice partnership studies have shown this is not always true. In this paper, we argue that instead of assuming research will be useful and used, we should directly study strategies for disseminating evidence and mobilizing knowledge. We present a framework for organizing knowledge mobilization research into three facets: (1) examining norms embedded in evidence we communicate, (2) descriptively understanding how decision-makers reason about this evidence as well as their varied decision-making needs, and (3) prescriptively developing and evaluating communication strategies that facilitate better use of evidence by decision-makers. We delineate this three-faceted framework—normative, descriptive, prescriptive—and demonstrate how it considers the perspectives and priorities of both researchers and decision-makers. Focusing on a case study—of how statistical evidence is conveyed by clearinghouses—we point to existing evidence in education and other fields such as data visualization and cognitive psychology that should inform our communication practices and identify areas where further knowledge mobilization research is needed.

Collaborative practice research in a community-based home visiting program

ABSTRACT Through collaborative practice research with the goal of identifying alternative discourses that can challenge expert-led knowledge in parent education, this study examined a community-based home visiting programme conducted by a social work practitioner serving disadvantaged migrant families in Shenzhen. To obtain diverse information, data was collected by three major methods, including in-depth interviews, participant observations and document reviews. Findings of this study shed lights on the social work research-practice partnership through a reflexive knowledge co-construction approach which helped to produce alternative discourses that considered parents’ experiential knowledge and emphasised a system-oriented perspective. By embracing the alternative subjectivities constituted by alternative discourses as collaborators and co-learners, the practitioner and researcher also demonstrated abilities to think about new possibilities for parent education practice and research. Implications for future empowerment-oriented social work practice and research in family and parent education fields were also discussed.

Bop or Flop?: Integrating Music and Data Science in an Elementary Classroom

The importance of data literacies and the shortage of research surrounding data science in elementary schools motivated this research-practice partnership (RPP) between researchers and teachers from a STEM elementary school. We used a narrative case study methodology to describe the instructional practices of one music teacher who co-designed a data science curricular unit during a summer professional development program and implemented it in her 5th-grade music classroom. Data collected for this study include in-person and video observations, reflective journals, artifacts, and interviews. Findings suggest that this teacher integrated data science literacies into her classroom by supporting multiple avenues for data storytelling and relying on learners’ everyday discourse and experiences. Our study details a practical example of implementing data science with non-STEM domains in elementary classrooms.

Using a Networked Improvement Community Approach to Design and Scale Up Social Psychological Interventions in Schools

In this article, we describe a researcher-practitioner partnership (RPP) that used a networked improvement community (NIC) approach to translate social-psychological interventions into educational practices to enhance student motivation and learning. Specifically, we highlight one of our first collaborative projects to develop and scale up an intervention to teach middle school students about adopting a growth mindset (Dweck, 2006) to address our practitioners’ concern that many of their students lacked the belief that they could learn. Using Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles, we show how we (a) successfully adapted a previously used growth mindset intervention designed for college students into a computer app appropriate for middle school students, (b) embedded using the app in different middle school contexts to promote growth mindset thinking, and (c) linked students’ growth mindset thinking to improved academic performance. We also discuss how this work was conducted as part of a networked improvement community sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching called the Student Agency Improvement Community.

Rapid problem formulation for Societal Impact: Lessons from a decade-long research-practice partnership

Problem-oriented research enables scholars to directly explore increasingly complex societal challenges, yet we still lack in-depth insight into the process of problem formulation. In this paper, we offer insight into this process by examining our 10-year engaged research study of Shorefast, a social enterprise based on Fogo Island, Canada, whose mission was to revitalize the community. We show how our research-practice collaboration evolved as a recursive process which we label as rapid problem formulation - a quickly shifting recursive process between problem definition and problem solution. By iterating quickly between problem and solution, researchers and practitioners can create greater impact as their understanding of the problem, and their search for solutions, deepens.

Computing education pathways from high school to community college: key strategies for aligning institutional systems

ABSTRACT Background and context High school students’ interest in computing fields is not always sustained in community college due to a disconnect between institutions. Objective To understand how cross-sector collaborations can align institutional pathways in computing. Research questions: What cross-sector practices can be used to build a computing education pathway? What practices can be used to promote student agency? How does a cross-sector partnership address issues of equity in the computing education pathway? Method A case study of a cross-sector research-practice partnership using interviews, observations, and meeting documentation. Findings Key strategies for aligning institutional systems to increase persistence in computing classes include building cross-sector connections and structures that support student agency, and addressing the structural factors that perpetuate inequity Implications The findings can inform efforts to build college and career pathways across the transition from high school to community college.

Laying a foundation for critical professional development through a research–practice partnership

ABSTRACT Much of the formal professional development teachers experience consists of short-term workshops that maintain – rather than disrupt – the systems of power that reproduce educational inequities. In response, some scholars have advocated critical professional development (PD) as a means of supporting teachers’ interrogation of these inequities and empowerment to effect change. Critical PD is based on Paulo Freire’s ideas of dialogue, problem-posing, and praxis, and it tends to emerge within grassroots organisations that function independently from the school systems. There are two drawbacks to this autonomous structure, however: the legitimacy problem, or the fact that the pedagogies advocated within these groups may be difficult to implement without the institutional support of participants’ districts; and the resource problem, or the fact that teachers’ time and efforts within these independent organisations is typically uncompensated. In this essay, we describe a research – practice partnership in which we co-developed critical PD on culturally responsive teaching with district leaders. The form of the PD, critical action research, allowed the participants to engage in problem-posing and praxis in order to analyse systems of power and their own positionalities within these systems. Recommendations for those with and without access to research – practice partnerships are offered.

Education in emergencies research partnerships through the looking glass

ABSTRACT In this paper, and as a team of researchers/practitioners spanning the globe, we reflect on the historical and ongoing legacies of (neo)colonialism and imperialism in education in emergencies (EiE) research and practice using collaborative auto-ethnography. Specifically, we explore how we’ve experienced hierarchies of power, positionality and privilege, and how we’ve benefited and/or been victims of this in the past. We then move to explore how we are striving to realise authentic and meaningful co-production in ACCESS (Accelerating Change for Childrens’ and Youths’ Education for Systems Strengthening), a 44-month research-practice partnership that aims to improve education provision for out-of-school children and youth. We identify both opportunities and challenges to doing this and highlight how decolonising EiE research/practice is an ongoing process rather than finite, singular actions.