Federal agencies鈥� peer-review panels for education research should be composed in a way that minimizes conflicts of interest, 鈥渂alances biases,鈥� and includes participation of scholars from a wide range of disciplines, a committee of the National Research Council says in a report released last week.
The report, is available online from the National Academies Press.
The report, 鈥淎dvancing Scientific Research in Education,鈥� is the last of four meant to better define what constitutes high-quality educational research, and to promote it, in light of a federal education officials鈥� emphasis on scientifically based research. (鈥淧anel Defines 鈥楽cience鈥� of Education Research,鈥� Dec. 12, 2001.)
To help build the knowledge base in education research, the committee says in another of its recommendations, researchers should be required to share their data with other scholars as a condition of having their work published in professional journals. Journals and associations involved in education research, it says, should adopt ethical standards to support data-sharing.
Before producing its latest report, the 14-member committee held five workshops with researchers, deans of schools of education, editors of major journals, and heads of federal agencies.
