The Foundational Handbook on Improvement Research in Education is a pathbreaking effort to build a field of research committed to producing the practical knowledge needed to advance educational access, quality, and equity. This is research distinguished by the use of inclusive, iterative approaches to analysis, design, implementation, and evaluation to understand and address educational opportunities, needs, and problems grounded deeply in school and community contexts. Designed for researchers, students, and educators, the handbook elaborates the intellectual foundations, explores the organizational and policy contexts, reviews approaches, and examines methods of improvement research. It features contributions from a plural community of researchers with expertise in the learning sciences, instructional improvement, organizational and policy studies, and research methodologies, many with extensive experience collaborating with teachers, leadership, families, and advocates in local problem solving and design.

Donald J. Peurach is a professor of Educational Policy, Leadership, and Innovation in the University of Michigan’s School of Education and senior fellow at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Jennifer Lin Russell is professor and chair of Educational, Foundations, Organizations and Policy in the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Education; associate director of Education Research and Practice at the Learning Research and Development Center; and senior fellow at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Lora Cohen-Vogel is the Frank A. Daniels Endowed Chair of Public Policy and Education in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Director of Interprofessional Education and Practice; and member of the National Academy of Sciences committee on the future of educational research.

William R. Penuel is Distinguished Professor of Learning Sciences and Human Development in the Institute of Cognitive Science in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder; member of the National Academy of Education; and fellow of the International Society of the Learning Sciences and American Educational Research Association.

1. Introduction: Introducing Improvement Research in Education, Jennifer Lin Russell & William R. Penuel

SECTION 1: FOUNDATIONS OF IMPROVEMENT RESEARCH IN EDUCATION

Introduction to Section 1: Foundations of Improvement Research in Education, David Eddy-Spicer & William R. Penuel

1. Chapter 2: The Work of Improvement, June Ahn, Erica Van Steenis, & William R. Penuel
2. Chapter 3: Equitable Learning, Barry Fishman & Leslie Rupert Herrenkohl
3. Chapter 4: The Institution of Schooling, Sarah L. Woulfin & Carrie Allen
4. Chapter 5: Accomplishing Meaningful Equity, David Eddy-Spicer & Louis M. Gomez
5. Chapter 6: The Theory and Practice of Democracy and Community, William R. Penuel & Vanessa Roberts

SECTION 2: CONTEXTS OF IMPROVEMENT RESEARCH IN EDUCATION

Introduction to Section 2: Contexts of Improvement Research in Education, Amanda Datnow & Donald J. Peurach

1. Chapter 7: Classroom Teaching and Learning as the Focus for Improvement Research, Paul Cobb & Anne Garrison Wilhelm
2. Chapter 8: Networked Improvement in the US and England: A New Role for the Middle Tier, Joshua L. Glazer, Toby Greany, Megan Duff, & William Berry
3. Chapter 9: Community-Based Partnerships: Advancing Epistemic Rights through Improvement Research, Gerald Campano, María Paula Ghiso, & Ankhi Thakurta
4. Chapter 10: Democratizing Educational Innovation and Improvement: The Policy Contexts of Improvement Research in Education, Donald J. Peurach, Anna T. Foster, Angela M. Lyle, & Emily R. Seeber
5. Chapter 11: Critical Perspectives on the Contexts of Improvement Research in Education, Huriya Jabbar & Joshua Childs

SECTION 3: MAPPING IMPROVEMENT RESEARCH IN EDUCATION

Introduction to Section 3: Mapping Improvement Research in Education, Marisa Cannata

1. Chapter 12: Defining Shared Principles of Improvement Research in Education, Stacey A. Rutledge, Marisa Cannata, & Carla P. Wellborn
2. Chapter 13: 5S Framework for Defining Problems Addressed Through Improvement Research in Education, Brandi Hinnant-Crawford & Erin Anderson
3. Chapter 14: On Teams: Exploring Variation in the Social Organization of Improvement Research in Education, Lora Cohen-Vogel, Christopher Harrison, & Daniel Cohen-Vogel
4. Chapter 15: Model Variation in Inquiry Processes, Catherine Lewis, Erin Henrick, Shelley Friedkin, & Steven McGee

SECTION 4: DESIGNS, TOOLS, AND METHODS OF IMPROVEMENT RESEARCH IN EDUCATION

Introduction to Section 4: Designs, Tools, and Methods of Improvement Research in Education, Alan J. Daly & Jennifer Lin Russell

1. Chapter 16: Solidarity-driven Codesign: Evolving Methodologies for Expanding Engagement with Familial & Community Expertise, Ann M. Ishimaru & Megan Bang
2. Chapter 17: Critical Social Network Analysis as a Method for Examining How Power Mediates Improvement Efforts, Megan Hopkins, Hayley Weddle, Robbin Riedy, Anita Caduff, Lisa Matsukata, & Tracy M. Sweet
3. Chapter 18: Measurement for Improvement, Sola Takahashi, Kara Jackson, Jon R. Norman, Marsha Ing, & Andrew E. Krumm
4. Chapter 19: What do Campfires and Social Media have in Common? Improvement, Kaitlin Torphy Knake, Jordan Tait, & Kenneth Frank
5. Chapter 20: Data-Intensive Improvement: The Intersection of Data Science and Improvement Science, Andrew E. Krumm and Alex J. Bowers

CONCLUSION

1. Chapter 21: Conclusion: Building the Field of Improvement Research in Education, Donald J. Peurach & Lora Cohen-Vogel

• This handbook is the first to define and elaborate the field of improvement research in education.
• This is a novel handbook that unites under one tent a broad array of research approaches centered on iterative, inclusive problem solving and design in local contexts.
• The handbook is a primer that will accelerate broad-based engagement with improvement research and ensure deep knowledge and understanding.
• The handbook is the product of the Improvement Scholars Network, a federation of researchers committed to building the field of improvement research in education.
• Members of the Improvement Scholars Network engaged in an inclusive, extensive three year process of defining “improvement research in education”, mapping the structure of the handbook, nominating chapters, identifying diverse authors teams, and workshopping drafts of chapters.
• Each chapter underwent a rigorous peer review process that integrated formative feedback from leading scholars and from other contributors.
• The chapters of the handbook elaborate the historical and intellectual foundations of improvement research, explore the organizational and policy contexts, review approaches and traditions, and examine specific methods.
• The handbook is a coherent volume that addresses cross-cutting themes of student learning and development, instructional practice, and equity and inclusivity.
• The handbook is the foundation of the new, rapidly developing field of improvement research in education, and an essential resource for researchers, graduate students, educational professionals, policy makers, and others co-engaged in advancing educational access, equality, and equity for all students.

Grounded in research and theory about what it means to study and radically transform practice, this is a book for any of us who refuse to maintain an inequitable status quo. An edited volume with a seamless analytic core, authors remind us why the work of improvement research cannot wait. As practitioners build new knowledge, mindsets, attitudes, dispositions and skills during increasingly challenging times, this book should be on the bookshelf of every educator, community organizer, politician and policymaker concerned about what it takes to co-construct opportunity centered practices and policies. Building on the best of what we know from empirical research about studying practice for design, new questions are raised and innovative strategies and tools are advanced and amplified. This book addresses a delicate, complex interplay between the individual and the institutional – it teaches as it traverses.
— H. Richard Milner IV, Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair of Education, Vanderbilt University

This volume is foundational in establishing the commitments, principles and methods of a new academic field inextricably bound with educational practice. It is foundational in its community of scholars who share common purpose: how the expertise in our nation’s universities can more productively engage in the practical concerns of advancing human betterment. It is foundational in its democratic rootedness that genuine improvements demand engaging the voices of students, educators, parents, and communities. And it is foundational in joining a moral commitment to reimagine a more just and equitable society to the sustained work needed in progressing toward these aspirations day-by-day in every school and community.
— Anthony S. Bryk, Ninth President, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

A tour de force bringing together some of our nation’s leading education scholars, from different sub-fields, to deliberate on a shared commitment - improvement research. The handbook masterfully maps the terrain as it takes the reader on a journey from the foundational ideas that undergird improvement research through the where, the what, and culminating in the how – the actual practice of improvement research. The volume captures how continuous improvement can be a central function of educational systems, supporting learning, teaching, and leadership practice. Together the chapters cogently shift the frame: from research as an input to educational improvement efforts to research as integral to and inside the work of educational improvement. Essential reading for anyone committed to producing useful and usable knowledge for enabling educational quality and equity for all.
— James P. Spillane, Spencer T. & Ann W. Olin Professor in Learning & Organizational Change, Northwestern University

The Foundational Handbook on Improvement Research in Education is a significant body of work that offers a growing field of scholars more examples of the power of applying improvement research to educational practice.
— Jill A. Perry, PhD, Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate

This handbook advances the field of educational research by examining all the contours of “improvement research,” that is research produced and used to support specific contexts. I look forward to using this handbook to justify and guide the development of research produced and used in our research-practice partnerships in California.
— Laura Wentworth, director of research practice partnerships, California Education Partners