Educational Research in the USA
On the occasion of the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) that will take place from 13 to 17 April 2018, we compiled a small webdossier on education research in the United States. The dossier provides an overview of professional associations, societies and networks; of research institutes and centres; of research history, topics and trends as well as of journals.
Professional Associations & Societies, Networks
American Educational Research Association (AERA)
http://www.aera.net
National Academy of Education (NAE)
https://naeducation.org
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine - Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education – Education
http://sites.nationalacademies.org/DBASSE/Topics/DBASSE_068935
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine - Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education – Testing and Assessment
http://sites.nationalacademies.org/DBASSE/Topics/DBASSE_068942
American Educational Studies Association
http://www.educationalstudies.org
National Education Research-Practice Partnerships (NNERPP)
http://nnerpp.rice.edu
University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA)
http://www.ucea.org
National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME)
http://www.ncme.org
National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB)
http://www.nagb.org
The NAGB is actually not an association but a board. But as its members set the policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and are responsible for developing the framework and test specifications, the NAGB was included in our listing.
American Evaluation Association (AEA)
http://www.eval.org
Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP)
http://www.aefpweb.org
Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE)
http://www.cpre.org
American Association of University Professors (AAUP)
http://www.aaup.org
College Board – Research
https://research.collegeboard.org
Association for Institutional Research (AIR)
http://www.airweb.org
Comparative and International Education Society United States (CIES)
http://www.cies.us
Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD)
http://www.srcd.org
The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
http://www.naeyc.org
Research Institutes & Centres
University Institutions
Several university rankings provide tools to filter for the subject of education and find universities with good and important education research: for example Times Higher Education World University Ranking (UK), QS World University Ranking (UK) or the Academic Ranking of World Universities (China).
All these websites have a ranking for subjects. The two British ones also provide filters for choosing the country and different indicators.
The comparison of the results shows the differences as well as the similarities between the rankings and allows for a better appreciation of the rankings. For instance, you can see that the Harvard and Stanford Universities, that is their education institutes, come first in all three rankings.
6 further universities or rather their education institutes appear in the top 15 in all three rankings at different positions: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Vanderbilt University, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Pennsylvania State University, Columbia University.
And another 7 universities or rather their education institutes appear in the top 15 of two of the three rankings:
University of California (Los Angeles), University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University, University of California (Berkeley), University of Minnesota, Arizona State University, University of Texas at Austin
Of course, rankings should always be treated with caution. Still, they provide a first overview and idea of potentially good and important institutes.
Non-University Institutions
This list is not exhaustive.
American Institutes for Research (AIR)
https://www.air.org
Institute of Education Sciences (IES)
http://ies.ed.gov
Social Science Research Council – Education Research
https://www.ssrc.org/programs/view/education-research-program/
National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER)
http://nieer.org
Strategic Education Research Partnership (SERP) / SERP Institute
http://serpinstitute.org
Institute on Education and Training (IET) – RAND Corporation
http://www.rand.org/education/
National Research Center for Career and Technical Education (NRCCTE) - Southern Regional Education Board
http://www.nrccte.org
Educational Policy Institute
http://www.educationalpolicy.org
Research History, Topics & Trends
In general, you can find many contributions covering specific fields and topics in educational research. Broader, comprehensive overviews over a longer period of time are a little harder to find. The last extensive ones range from the beginnings of education research to the 1990ies, see for example the article "Contested Terrain. A History of Education Research in the United States, 1890-1990" which is linked in our list.
We nevertheless tried to compile a small list of overviews for you. The list is sorted chronologically. Most of the literature is free of costs. For the few articles that are not, we added the remark "subject to a fee".
Alexander, Patricia A.; Levine, Felice J.; Tate IV, William F., 2016: Education Research: A Century of Discovery [centennial volume]. Review of Education Research 40(1).
http://journals.sagepub.com/toc/rrea/40/1 OR
http://www.aera.net/Publications/Books/RRE-Centennial
Mahoney, Shawn, 2013: Educational Research in the United States. A Survey of Pre-K-12 Teachers' Perceptions Regarding the Purpose, Conceptions, Use, Impact, and Dissemination.
https://repository.asu.edu/attachments/125937/content/Mahoney_asu_0010E_13486.pdf
Walters, Pamela B.; Lareau, Annette; Ranis, Sheri (eds.), 2009: Education Research On Trial: Policy Reform and the Call for Scientific Rigor.
https://www.routledge.com/Education-Research-On-Trial-Policy-Reform-and-the-Call-for-Scientific/Walters-Lareau-Ranis/p/book/9780415989893 (subject to a fee)
Zhao, Yong; Zhang, Gaoming; Yang, Wenzhong (Eric); Kirkland, David; Han, Xue; Zhang, Jianwei, 2008: A comparative study of educational research in China and the United States. In: Asia Pacific Journal of Education 28(1): 1-17.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233308962_A_comparative_study_of_educational_research_in_China_and_the_United_States
Ranis, Sheri H.; Barnhouse Walters, Pamela, 2004: Education Research as a Contested Enterprise.
the deliberations of the SSRC–NAE Joint Committee on Education Research. In: European Educational Research Journal 3(4): 795-806.
https://doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2004.3.4.6 (subject to a fee)
Condliffe Lagemann, Ellen, 2000: An Elusive Science. The Troubling History of Education Research.
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo3683209.html (subject to a fee)
Condliffe Lagemann, Ellen, 1997: Contested Terrain. A History of Education Research in the United States, 1890-1990. In: Educational Researcher 26(9): 5-17.
https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X026009005 (subject to a fee)
No author, 1991: Research and the Renewal of Education. A Report from the National Academy of Education.
https://eric.ed.gov/?q=%22Research+and+the+Renewal+of+Education%22&id=ED337864 (subject to a fee)
Knox, Holly, 1971: A History of Educational Research in the United States.
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED088800.pdf
Sieber, Sam D.; Lazarsfeld, Paul F., 1966: The organization of educational research in the United States.
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED010276.pdf
The education research grant library of the Spencer Foundation provides a further possibility for finding out about research trends. The Spencer Foundation is supposedly the "major American private funder of research on education" (Ranis / Barnhouse Walters 2004: 795, subject to a fee). More than 5000 research projects are listed in the database since 1984. Different filters like for example year, research area or methods will help you find research trends for specific topics, time periods or methodological approaches.
Journals
We refrain from compiling our own list of education journals at this point. Instead we would like to link to the SCImago Journal & Country Rank (Wikipedia-Info). This ranking provides good tools to filter for subject and country among others and lists more than 300 US journals for the subject category "education".
Please find here journals for different subject categories linked to education:
SCImago Journal and Country Rank - Education - United States
http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?category=3304&country=US&type=j
SCImago Journal and Country Rank - E-learning - United States
http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?country=US&type=j&category=3399
SCImago Journal and Country Rank - Developmental and Educational Psychology - United States
http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?country=US&type=j&category=3204
http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?country=US&type=j&category=3204
News worldwide
- Gender and Technology 2024: further special edition of the Unesco Global Education Monitoring 2023 published
- Unmasking racism. Guidelines for educational materials.
- Lehrermangel nicht nur in Deutschland
- AI report – By the European Digital Education Hub’s Squad on artificial intelligence in education.
