The significance of Noel Entwistle's paper lies in the fundamental question raised regarding the purpose of research into higher education. The article eloquently charts the development of research into student learning and its contribution to the field of educational psychology, but what has been the impact in terms of improvement into the quality of student learning? Answering this question requires a consideration of the fundamental goals of the research and more fundamentally what we are trying to achieve. As Entwistle points out there is a distinction between what can largely be considered explanatory theories, which are research-focused and action theories, which are practice-focused (p.1). While researchers may believe that their research has relevance for practice, adopting generic, generalisable research findings that are conceptually and theoretically grounded does not readily translate to practice. Certainly there is a gap between research and practice (de Laat, Lally, Simons, & Wenger, 2006; Hammersley, 1997, 1997; Hargreaves, 1996, 1997; Kirkwood & Price, 2014; Price & Kirkwood, 2014). [This is in response to the article, "Contributions of Educational Psychology to Understanding Student Learning: What Has Been Discovered -- What More Could Be Done?" For that article, see EJ1247419.]