Guiding Change in Special Education by Havelock Ronald G.;Hamilton James L.;

Author:Havelock, Ronald G.;Hamilton, James L.; [Havelock, Ronald G.; Hamilton, James L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1994242
Publisher: Corwin Press
Published: 2003-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

Knowledge Base

Gap Between Research and Practice

The disconnect between research and practice applies across the board in education. Most researchers are driven by theoretical interests, publish their findings in academic journals, and focus their research on “why” questions or on the validation of propositional knowledge that is stripped of contextual data (Hood, 1975; Mishler, 1979; House, 1981; Fuhrman, 1992; Kauffman, Schiller, Birman, & Coutinho, 1993). The research-based literature thus does not “easily map on the ways teachers think” (Richardson, 1990, p. 15). Most practitioners are driven by the press of their daily work (Huberman, 1983; Turnbull, 1991), are concerned with “how” and “what” matters (Huberman, 1995), rely on intuitive and craft-validated resources (Huberman, 1983), and when they adopt changes, do so in their own way (Crandall & Loucks, 1983) and without waiting for hard evidence (Slavin, 1989; Engelmann, 1992; Carnine, 1995).

This gap may be even greater when it comes to special education (Malouf & Schiller, 1995; U.S. Department of Education, 1995; Carnine, 1997). Many general educators who do not have much special education training, nonetheless teach special education students. Moreover, some general educators have negative attitudes toward or are uninterested in serving diverse students (including students with disabilities). These attitudes can produce negative learning outcomes for themselves (as adult learners in staff development activities) and their students (Goodlad, 1984; McDermott, 1993; Talbert & McLaughlin, 1994; Pellegrini & Horvat, 1995). In addition, special education research focuses on individuals’ performance and variability, rather than on average group performance, whereas most schools and school districts focus on groups of children (Deno, 1989; Gersten, 1990; U.S. Department of Education, 1995).

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