Research-practice Partnerships for School Improvement

Thereis an increasing focus on research-practice partnerships that adopt research designsaimed at improving educationalpractice while advancing research knowledge. There is now a need for books thatprovide a theoretical and practical account of successful research designs thathave been tested and replicated over time and contexts. This book addressesthis need by providing thefirst comprehensive account of the Learning Schools Model (LSM), a design-basedresearch-practice partnership that has been tested over 15 years and across contexts and countries(n=5). This model has successfully built teacher and school capacity andimproved valued student outcomes for primarily indigenous and ethnic minority students from lowersocio-economic communities.

Thequality of research into the model has been recognised locally andinternationally. The International Literacy Association reprinted a paper onthe original model in their volume “Theoretical models and processes of Reading(6th Ed)”. The authors won the University of Auckland’s Research ExcellenceAward (2015), awarded for research of demonstrable quality and impact,for their research into the Model.

This book addressesseveral gaps in the existing literature on research-practice partnerships.  Firstly, understanding applications incontexts beyond the USA where much of the seminal work is located adds to ourcollective understanding of contexts in terms of constraints and enablers. Secondly, we provide a theoretical accountof partnership development and demonstrate how these are practically developedin situ to address the known need for stronger theoretical understandings of partnershipdevelopment and better training in developing partnerships. Finally, our bookdemonstrates how research can be both responsive to context and yet have robustand replicable research designs that improve valued student outcomes over timeand contexts. This in turn provides an alternate research approach forcountries where randomisedcontrol trials are often the “gold standard” for interventions.