What I Wish I Had Known About Education Research When I Was a Teacher

‍TLDR: During my years as a teacher, “education research” was not a field (or a phrase) I was familiar with. When I left the classroom for graduate school, it was with the goal of understanding how policy and practice could better serve the students I taught, many of whom came from too-often-underserved student groups. Even then, I didn’t fully grasp that much of my graduate training in a school of education would focus on preparing me to be a researcher. The experience made me wish I had known more about education research as a teacher. So this is the explainer I wish I’d had before my first staff meeting about a new mandated curriculum.

‍(Some) Researchers Look More Like Teachers Than You’d Expect

‍When I pictured “education research” early in my career, I imagined people conducting studies far away from any actual classroom. That does happen. But the full truth is messier and more interesting. Education researchers come out of schools of education, as I did, but also from psychology, economics, sociology, public policy, statistics, political science, and other disciplines. Some, like me, started as classroom teachers before moving into research. Others came to study education for reasons ranging from personal interest to interest in using particular research methods.

‍That mix of backgrounds and motivations matters. A researcher trained in economics asks different questions and trusts different kinds of evidence than one trained in developmental psychology. And a former teacher on a research team usually means someone is asking whether the proposed study would survive contact with a real Tuesday morning.

‍The Work Happens in More Places Than a University

‍Some education research happens at universities, but plenty of it happens elsewhere: federal and state agencies, nonprofit research organizations, philanthropic foundations, multistate consortia, and increasingly inside school districts themselves. Until 2025, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the independent research arm of the U.S. Department of Education, funded much of this work nationally. For instance, the Comprehensive Centers and the Regional Educational Laboratories partnered directly with states and districts. These programs were largely operated under contract with the federal government by nonprofit organizations like the American Institutes for Research, Education Development Center, and WestEd. Multistate consortia like WIDA, where I worked supporting multilingual learner education, generate research and tools used across dozens of states at once. Trusted professional organizations like the National Education Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers also have researchers on staff. Think tanks and other nonprofits, such as the Brookings Institution, the National Student Clearinghouse and the American Enterprise Institute, also study education.

‍If your district has ever filled out a survey for a university partner or piloted a new program with an outside evaluator attached, you’ve already been part of the education research ecosystem, whether anyone called it that or not.

‍Education Research Has Two Key Jobs, and They Get Confused Constantly

‍Most education research is trying to answer one of two questions: what is happening here and does it work. Descriptive research — surveys, interviews, observational studies — tells us what’s happening: how teachers are using a new curriculum, what students believe about their own abilities, how chronic absenteeism is trending. Causal research tries to determine whether a specific program or practice produced an outcome, rather than some other factor explaining the difference.

‍Both jobs matter. The trouble starts when descriptive findings get treated as proof of causation, for example when a survey showing teachers like a new app gets cited as evidence the app improves learning. Liking a thing and knowing that thing works are not the same.

‍Not Every Study Can Tell You the Same Thing

‍Causal research is intended to show whether something works, but even within causal research, the method matters enormously for what you’re allowed to conclude. A randomized controlled trial, where students or classrooms are randomly assigned to receive an intervention or not, is the only design built to rule out the explanation that the kids who did better would have done better anyway. Quasi-experimental designs try to approximate that comparison without true random assignment, using statistical techniques to account for pre-existing differences, but these designs leave more room for those differences to sneak back in. Correlational studies can show that two things move together; they cannot tell you that one caused the other, no matter how strong the relationship looks.

‍No causal method can tell you how a policy or program was implemented, how people experienced it, or whether any of its potential benefits were worth the costs associated with implementation. These are questions for rich descriptive and qualitative methods.

‍When someone tells you “research shows” something, the fair follow-up question is simple: what kind of study, and compared to what?

‍Keeping Up Without Drowning

‍Teachers do not need to read research journal articles to stay current, that’s not a sustainable use of a teacher’s time and these articles are too often written using inaccessible language and housed behind paywalls. Aim for a handful of trustworthy filters instead. The What Works Clearinghouse publishes free practice guides that summarize the strongest available evidence on specific topics, from early literacy to math instruction to college persistence. Evidence for ESSA does something similar for individual programs and curricula. Education media outlets like The Hechinger Report, Chalkbeat and EdWeek provide useful commentary on recent research, and articles in these outlets often link to accessible research sources. If your school or district has an instructional coach, research office, or knowledge broker, that person’s job is partly to translate findings for you. Use them.

‍And when a new initiative arrives with “research-based” attached to it, it’s fair to ask school and district leaders: what does that mean here, specifically, and what’s the evidence behind it?