A study examined the distribution, use, and impact of vocational education research and development (R&D) products developed with Federal monies during fiscal years 1981 and 1982. Distribution data for the study were obtained from responses to questionnaires from 22 of the 32 states with products accepted by the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) during calendar year 1982. Next, telephone interviews were administered to 55 recipients of the Dissemination and Utilization (D&U) Program of the National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE). Finally, impact data were obtained from six sites in West Virginia where two NCRVE-developed entrepreneurship training products were being used. These three data collection efforts, which resulted in a rather positive picture of R&D product impact, confirmed that R&D effectiveness can indeed be documented; however, such documentation turned out to be expensive. To keep documentation costs to a minimum, researchers were urged to plan utilization and impact studies carefully, to ensure that questions in such surveys be relevant to the purposes at hand, and to make certain that study respondents are key audiences who are in a position to resolve the problems under investigation. (Appended to this report is a conceptual framework for assessing impact.) (MN)