My Research Is Better Than Your Experience
During the first class of a doctoral-level course sequence on education research, my professor mentioned that he wished researchers would refrain from writing policy implications when reporting on their research findings. Just do the study, tell 'em how you did it and what you found, he said. The policy implications section is invariably the least defensible part of any research paper, the place where researchers' inherent biases emerge. Let your readers decide--or argue about--what the results mean, in terms of policy-making and practice applications.
Folks in my Ed Policy cohort were appalled--why would you go to the trouble of investigating an important research question if you couldn't follow through with policy suggestions based on the Truth and Wisdom your study uncovered? The more studies we read and analyzed, however, the more his observation resonated with me.
It's remarkable how many well-done research studies present credible evidence, then go off on an implications bender. Even when evidence is shaded or questionable or very limited, the boldness of the associated policy recommendations would often make your head spin. If you were a practitioner, that is, thinking about how this would play out in an actual school.
Here's an example of what I mean, clipped from Mathematica's recent study on the effectiveness of TFA math (note: not literacy) teachers:
Although TFA is often criticized for the fact that its teachers make only a two-year
