ERIC Number: EJ897601
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2005
Pages: 41
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1096-2719
EISSN: N/A
Can the Federal Government Improve Education Research?
Jacob, Brian Aaron; Ludwig, Jens
Brookings Papers on Education Policy, p47-87 2005
Will recent federal policy changes succeed in improving the quality of education policy research? One explanation for the limited supply to date of high-quality evaluation evidence in education is limited demand, owing perhaps, in part, to market failure for both education outcomes and education research. In the market for education outcomes, the public seems to have limited information about school performance, and educators thus face limited incentives to improve performance. In the market for education research, consumers face information problems that make it difficult to determine the quality of the research "product." Even for research producers, information about the costs of high-quality research designs (such as randomized or natural experiments) is more readily available than information about the benefits, which may help explain why such methods are not more common. The government's new Institute of Education Sciences seeks to directly increase the supply of experimental evidence, clearly a step in the right direction. But more sweeping changes in education research may ultimately arise from efforts to stimulate the demand for high-quality education research and solve the information problems facing both consumers and producers in the research market. The success of federal policies in this last regard is likely to require better data on the benefits and costs of different research designs, particularly from research on the conditions under which nonexperimental research designs can replicate experimental findings. (Contains 95 notes.)
Descriptors: Educational Research, Federal Government, Educational Improvement, Government Role, Educational Quality, Change Strategies, Educational Change, Educational Policy, Program Evaluation, Research Needs, Evidence, Policy Analysis, Supply and Demand
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Elementary Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A