What Every Literacy Educator Should Know About Research

1. What Every Literacy Educator Should Know About Research Nell K. Duke & Nicole M. Martin Michigan State University Literacy Achievement Research Center

2. Research

3. “Research” • Term “research” is being used, and misused, everywhere. • Is research a propaganda tool? • Is research absolute truth? • We will argue for the value, but also the need to be critical, of literacy research.

4. Researchers and Educators • Some educators find researchers intimidating. • Some researchers find educators intimidating. • Some great research has been a true collaboration between researchers and teachers.

5. 1. What Research Can Do Our experiences alone may misguide us. • That the earth is flat was a reasonable conclusion to draw from personal, individual observations. • “dyslexia” example • looking up words in the dictionary and writing definition example • cf., Bos and Anders, 1990 • Sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know. • informational text example

6. 1. What Research Can Do Research allows us to take a longer-term view than our personal experiences may allow. • Research allows us into places and situations we may not be able to observe otherwise. • e.g., Perry, 2009 • e.g., neuroimaging • Research allows us to pool our numbers and experiences. • E.g., AI • word callers

7. 2. What Research Is • Put simply, in our view, research is the systematic collection and analysis of data to address a question. • There are many different kinds of research. • The ultimate purpose of literacy research is to deepen understanding of and thus improve literacy education.

8. 3. What Research is Not

9. 4. The Difference Between Research-Based and Research-Tested Research-Based: the particular practice, approach, or product has not been tested in a research study but has been designed to be consistent with research findings Research-Tested: one or more research studies tested the impact of that particular practice, approach, or product

10. Research-Tested • Did the research test the practice, approach, or product against something else? • What exactly did the research test? • What exactly did the research find? • To what exactly was the practice, approach, or product compared? • What outcome measures were used? • With what sample(s) was the research conducted? • Based on how many studies? • Of what quality? • With what impact?

11. Research-Based • How similar is what was researched and found to what was being given the “research-based” label? • Based on how many studies with what findings? • What research design(s) were used? • Of what quality were the studies?

12. 5. Many Kinds of Research Have Valuable Contributions to Make to Our Understanding of Literacy Learning, Development, and Education • The educational enterprise is far too complex for one type of research to answer all of our questions or meet all of our needs. • We need many different kinds of research.

13. 6. Different Kinds of Research are Good for Different Things • What kind(s) of research would be useful for understanding what goes on in the mind of a good reader when he/she reads? • What kind(s) of research would be useful for determining if one instructional approach is more effective than another? • What kind(s) of research would be useful for figuring out whether U.S. students are less interested in reading today than they were decades ago?

14. 7. High-Quality Research Has a Logic of Inquiry “What matters in the evaluation of the worth of a piece of research, of any paradigm or intellectual tradition, is the manner in which researchers locate their inquiry against a background of extant knowledge and assumptions, the goodness of fit between research questions and methodologies, the quality of the data collection and analysis, and the integrity of the overall warrant for the claims (Howe & Eisenhart, 1990).” - Wilkinson & Bloome, 2008, p. 7

15. 8. Conclusions Drawn from Research Are Only as Sound as the Research Itself

16. 9. Where and How Research is Published or Presented Requires Particular Attention

17. 10. Educational Research Proceeds Through the Slow Accumulation of Knowledge • True of most research • Research reviews and syntheses especially helpful. • There are also outlets for peer-reviewed reviews of research such as the journal Review of Educational Research. • Some particularly influential recent reviews: • National Reading Panel Report (2000) • Preventing Reading Difficulties report (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998) • Writing Next (Graham & Perin, 2006). • Handbook of Reading Research (Kamil, Mosenthal, Pearson, & Barr, 2000) • What Research Has to Say About Reading Instruction (Farstrup & Samuels, 2002).

18. Questions to Ask of Research Syntheses • Are the authors well respected in the field? • Does it appear that they are reviewing all the available research? • Do they show openness to, a variety of perspectives? • Did another person also code the studies? Was there good agreement? • Are the authors explicit in their explanations of findings and results? • Were coding of and conclusions drawn from studies appropriate?

19. In the end. . . We believe a strong case can be made that research can make many valuable contributions to literacy practice. It is worth all the fuss. At the same time, research is neither infallible nor simple. Careful reading, evaluation, and interpretation by thoughtful and informed educators offers our best chance at realizing the full value of what this priceless tool—research—has to offer.

20. Our mission is to advance knowledge related to literacy achievement in the U.S. and the world.