This paper describes the development and promotion of research leadership in special education through a postdoctoral fellowship program designed to provide faculty mentoring and research apprenticeship experiences. Results are discussed, based on 30 participants over 12 years, as are implications of such programs for research leadership.…

Argues that measurable change in student performance should be the standard for making judgments about effective instruction and that these data can serve as an important component in the evaluation of teacher-preparation programs. Describes assessment technologies that allow more direct measures of student learning. (Author/CR)

This introductory article notes the special issue's purpose of highlighting ways to close gaps between research and practice in special education from the perspective of teacher preparation, inservice training, professional development, and collaborations between researchers and teachers in local schools. (DB)

This article considers reasons for the gap between research and practice in special education including the unique separation of the research and practice communities in special and general education, the limited relevance of educational research, the failure to articulate manageable research-validated interventions, and the weak opportunities for…

This paper identifies nine lessons learned from five federally funded special education research to practice projects. Four projects are school-university collaborative partnerships and one is local-school- based. Both models stress research-validated practices to improve performance of students with and without disabilities across multiple years.…

This article first assesses the existing "state of awareness of the research to practice gap" among 111 preservice educators. It then discusses the potential benefits associated with the improvement of this knowledge and describes a variety of programmatic options, structural and instructional, that may enhance preservice educators' knowledge,…