69ý

Federal What the Research Says

Education Research Has Changed Under COVID. Here’s How the Feds Can Catch Up

By Sarah D. Sparks — April 05, 2022 5 min read
Graphic shows iconic data images all connected.
  • Save to favorites
  • Print
Email Copy URL

The last two years of the pandemic have not been kind to education research. Data collection and studies were disrupted as schools and universities shut down and went remote. Now, the priorities for research have fundamentally shifted to the urgent need to help schools and students recover from the extended disruptions.

That’s the conclusion of a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which calls for both structural and topic changes to the research funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, the Education Department’s research agency.

“When research is grounded in the needs and experiences of communities, then that community’s district and educators are more likely to use the findings of the research in their daily work,” said Adam Gamoran, the chairman of the National Academies committee that wrote the report.

Among other things, the report calls for IES to focus more research on areas of pressing concern in the last two years, including education technology, teacher education and workforce development, and civil rights policies and practices in schools. It also calls for IES to provide a clearer process for supporting grants, to improve the diversity of education researchers.

Education Week spoke with Gamoran about how federal education research can adapt to changing needs. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How do you think the last two years have changed priorities for education research?

Gamoran: I think the pandemic has both sharpened our attention to existing inequalities and exacerbated the inequalities that already exist in our education system. Inequality has always been the number one problem of U.S. education, and the pandemic has made that clearer than ever. And it has made inequalities worse through disrupted learning and through stress and trauma on students, parents, and educators. So that’s the first big consequence of the pandemic with implications for research. And then, technology has always been a major focus of IES, but we’ve seen the use of technology in education during the pandemic, and that has intensified the need for new research on technology and education. We know that administrative data collections were greatly disrupted and we know that opportunities to carry out classroom-based research were greatly disrupted during the pandemic.

The National Academies report notes that although teacher education has long been a research priority, IES has only funded a handful of studies explicitly around teacher education. Why do you think it fell through the cracks?

Gamoran: The topics for research offered by IES are very broad and practically anything within the field of education research could be proposed. But in fact, some don’t get proposed because of the way the project types and the topics intersect. Teacher education is an example. It’s very difficult to study the effects of teacher education on student outcomes, because they’re so far downstream. Consequently, the full focus on student outcomes as the primary outcome makes it less likely that teacher education will be successfully proposed as an IES research study. So one change that we recommend is to broaden the outcomes that are allowed to allow outcomes at other levels: the teacher level, the classroom level, the school level as the primary outcome. Loosening restrictions like those will help to foster research in areas that are already possible, but rarely done and will bring research to where it’s needed.

What kinds of outcomes can we study now that we wouldn’t have been able to five or 10 years ago?

Gamoran: Administrative data is increasingly available, accelerated by the Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, which has encouraged government agencies to make those data available for researchers inside and outside of government. And of course, the availability of state data in education—which is a direct result of IES’s national longitudinal data system funding—is certainly new within the past decade. We have new approaches to artificial intelligence, new approaches to data scraping, new approaches to the use of big data that are improving all the time, and we need both research that uses those techniques, and we need research on the techniques themselves.
IES has for a long time recognized the importance of understanding, not just what works, but what works for whom and under what circumstance. But the way the research proceeds is first, the what works question is asked, and then the heterogeneity questions—what works for whom, where, under what circumstances—get added on later. And our committee is recommending that that attention to variation be built in from the start, so that it’s not an afterthought, but rather the heart of the problem.

The National Academies found a lack of diversity when it comes to who is supported to study education. Where do you think the pipeline is breaking down?

Gamoran: The committee is also very interested in that question, but we do not have the answer. We don’t have the data. IES has released a little bit of data on who gets funded, but we don’t have data on who applies so we are not able to discern at what point in the pipeline the inequities are being introduced. That’s why we call for [a] comprehensive [grant funding] review.

Many of the National Academies’ recommendations, such as having more frequent research application cycles and more monitoring of funding equity, require manpower. Do you think the IES has the staff capacity to make these changes?

Gamoran: Some of the recommendations could be implemented with few additional resources. However, all of them will require staff time, and that is a scarce resource at IES. We have recommended that Congress re-examine IES’s budget, recognizing both that it is modest compared to other scientific research agencies and that it is not enough to allow all the recommendations of this report to be implemented. Indeed, staffing resources are essential for implementing these recommendations.

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Artificial Intelligence Webinar
AI and Educational Leadership: Driving Innovation and Equity
Discover how to leverage AI to transform teaching, leadership, and administration. Network with experts and learn practical strategies.
Content provided by 
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
School Climate & Safety Webinar
Investing in Success: Leading a Culture of Safety and Support
Content provided by 
Assessment K-12 Essentials Forum Making Competency-Based Learning a Reality
Join this free virtual event to hear from educators and experts working to implement competency-based education.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.

Read Next

Federal From Our Research Center How Educators Say They'll Vote in the 2024 Election
Educators' feelings on Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump vary by age and the communities where they work.
4 min read
Jacob Lewis, 3, waits at a privacy booth as his grandfather, Robert Schroyer, fills out his ballot while voting at Sabillasville Elementary School, Nov. 8, 2022, in Sabillasville, Md.
Jacob Lewis, 3, waits at a privacy booth as his grandfather, Robert Schroyer, fills out his ballot while voting at Sabillasville Elementary School, Nov. 8, 2022, in Sabillasville, Md.
Julio Cortez/AP
Federal Q&A Oklahoma State Chief Ryan Walters: 'Trump's Won the Argument on Education'
The state schools chief's name comes up as Republicans discuss who could become education secretary in a second Trump administration.
8 min read
Ryan Walters, then-Republican candidate for Oklahoma State Superintendent, speaks at a rally, Nov. 1, 2022, in Oklahoma City.
Ryan Walters speaks at a rally on Nov. 1, 2022, in Oklahoma City as a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction. He won the race and has built a national profile for governing in the MAGA mold.
Sue Ogrocki/AP
Federal Why Trump and Harris Have Barely Talked About 69ý This Election
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump haven't outlined many plans for K-12 schools, reflecting what's been the norm in recent contests for the White House.
6 min read
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris participate during an ABC News presidential debate at the National Constitution Center, Tuesday, Sept.10, 2024, in Philadelphia.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris participate in an ABC News presidential debate at the National Constitution Center on Sept.10, 2024, in Philadelphia.
Alex Brandon/AP
Federal Who Could Be Donald Trump's Next Education Secretary?
Trump must decide if he wants someone with a "proven track record" or a "culture warrior," says a former GOP Hill staffer.
9 min read
President Donald Trump, right, arrives in a classroom at St. Andrew Catholic School in Orlando, Fla., on March 3, 2017.
President Donald Trump, right, arrives in a classroom at St. Andrew Catholic School in Orlando, Fla., on March 3, 2017.
Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP