PRESS RELEASE: MOST TEACHERS ACCESS ACADEMIC RESEARCH, BUT FEW USE IT TO INFORM PRACTICE, NEW EVIDENCE FINDS

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — More than nine in 10 educators access academic research about education, but just 16% use it to inform classroom practice, according to new research by the nonprofit Jefferson Education Exchange.  Based on surveys of educators from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the research also found that a majority of teachers have opinions about what education-related topics should be studied, and nearly six in 10 want to get involved in research themselves.

“While educators know that research-based practices are incredibly valuable, identifying and applying relevant research for your own classroom can be a daunting task. That’s because all too often, the voice of educators is almost entirely absent from decisions about what ideas, approaches, and strategies get studied by education researchers,” said James Daugherty, Arts Education and Distance Learning Specialist for Davidson County Schools in North Carolina. “This report points to an urgent need to give teachers more of a voice in the research process — in ways that can have a transformative impact for students.”