Chapter One: Ambitious Aims: Research for Solutions and Knowledge

Improving educational practice while advancing research knowledge is a lofty aim. Meeting these twin objectives is fundamentally important yet difficult to achieve in practice, particularly when the focus is on meaningful and lasting changes in educational outcomes in schools. The literature is awash with cautionary tales of research having little impact on practice. Yet there are pressing problems in school effectiveness and in particular, inequities between groups of students, that feel intractable. Both between and within countries we can see ongoing patterns of disparities at the same time as we can see shining examples of effective practices (OECD, 2015).

Educational research should be contributing better to solutions. The reasons why it has not are, in part, due to the questionable relevance of educational research to practice (Snow, 2015, 2016). They also reflect just how difficult educational challenges are; five of which are variability, scalability, capability, acceleration and sustainability. These pose substantial challenges for researchers in school reform; and much has been written about them.