National Directions in Education Research Planning. A Conference Co-Sponsored by the National Educational Research Policy and Priorities Board and the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education (McLean, Virginia, June 17-18, 1998). Report on the Conference.

A conference was convened to bring together representatives of educational research planning efforts underway in federal agencies and professional and scientific organizations. This report identifies the principal emphases and tentative agreements from the sessions. The clear sense of the conference was that the educational research system has encountered powerful constraints and limitations, which have hampered many research efforts. In spite of this, educational research has made many important contributions to the improvement of education and can continue to contribute if adequate resources are allocated. Improvements to the synthesis of research findings, the institutional framework for research, and the communication of research findings must be made, and new, highly trained researchers must be recruited. An overriding idea of participants was that educational research planning must emphasize focus and selectivity to concentrate on areas that the public and profession believe to be important. Emphasis on more rigorous methods and designs and better peer participation and review will be very important. Undergirding any successful research planning must be attention to the capacity of the education research system and an increased emphasis on communicating the findings of research to the profession, the public, and the educational policy world. The National Educational Research Policy and Priorities Board and the Office of Educational Research and Improvement have important roles to play in these efforts. Appendixes contain the conference agenda and a list of attendees. (SLD)