Jill Alexa Perry

This paper explores how redesigned Education Doctorate (EdD) programs in educational leadership can serve as a lever for strengthening the use of research evidence (URE) in schools and districts. Drawing on the COM-B framework, we conceptualize a theory of action that links EdD program design to leaders’ capabilities, motivations, and behaviors in applying research to educational improvement. We identify key dimensions of leadership preparation that align with well-documented URE practices. Finally, we discuss how these insights can inform doctoral programs as well as in-service professional learning and suggest the need for additional empirical work on these relationships and a deeper understanding of how local contexts shape the effectiveness of leadership preparation in supporting research-informed decision-making.

Recently the notion of Critical Race Theory (CRT) has come under fire by those with a limited knowledge of the theoretical underpinnings surrounding the intersection of education, law, and race in American society. To support those students eager to incorporate CRT as a framework within their research, the authors analyzed the dissertations of students receiving Education Doctorates (EdD). The researchers set out to determine how EdD students used CRT, how they framed problems of practice (POP), how they operationalized CRT, and to understand how those former students interrogated their findings in the pursuit of truth. The authors intend for this work to expand the knowledge base on CRT and inform scholarly practitioners on how to operationalize CRT to create sustainable change in the American education system.

In this essay, we explore the tension between research using continuous improvement (CI) paradigms, such as improvement science, and conventional research, and the role and regulation of Institutional Review Board (IRB) oversight. We argue that the current regulatory structure privileges traditional research and hinders collaborative inquiry that centers the voice and agency of those traditionally marginalized. We also question whether IRBs should limit CI efforts required of educational leaders as part of their jobs. We offer recommendations for how IRBs and scholar-practitioners can together support CI efforts.

Adapted from her opening address at the October 2017 CPED convening, Perry offers reflections on the importance of documenting and sharing evidence within the CPED consortium as the organization moves into its next 10 years.

In this article, we reveal results of a multiple-case study supported by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education that examined how schools of education reformed their EdD programs as a result of membership in the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate. The cross-case analysis was conducted on 21 cases written by 38 researchers who visited institutions across the United States. Results indicate that changes in EdD programs have taken place at institutional, programmatic, and individual levels as a result of incorporating the Carnegie project’s principles and design concepts into program reform.