Chapter 14: Integrating Improvement Science Into Leadership Preparation Programs: Enduring Challenges and Promising Strategies

The Doctor of Education (EdD) degree has historically been viewed as an unsatisfactory mix of scholarly and practitioner training (Shulman et al., 2006). In response to this dissatisfaction, the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) has cultivated a growing network of doctoral institutions committed to reimagining the EdD to prepare leaders for the complex work of utilizing research inquiry methods to address problems of practice related to equity and social justice (Perry et al., 2020). EdD programs are increasingly turning to improvement science (IS; Bryk et al., 2015) as a signature pedagogy for enacting this vision (Perry et al., 2020). We follow Hinnant-Crawford (2020) in viewing IS as an overarching logic that involves identifying problems of practice, inquiring into the systems that contribute to that problem, developing a theory of improvement and corresponding practical measurement system, and iteratively implementing, adjusting, and spreading change ideas.