Our Research-Practice Partnership

Thanks to funding from NSF, CSforALL, CodeCrew, and CSEdResearch.org have created a research-practice partnership (SCRIPTCrewTN) with a design-based implementation research partnership model (Henrick et al., 2017). The work of the research-practice partnership centers increasing the capacity of school districts in TN to provide equitable access, participation, and experiences among students in K-12 CS pathways. CSEdResearch.org’s role in this project is to conduct formative evaluation research using the Five Dimensions of Effectiveness framework to provide feedback to the RPP member organizations so that the RPP can be effective in reaching its goals (Henrick et al., 2017). The five dimensions are:

1. Trust and building relationships,
2. Rigorous research informing action,
3. Supporting the partner practice organization in achieving its goals,
4. Producing knowledge that informs educational improvement broadly, and
5. Capacity building in each partner toward ability to engage in partnership work.

As the internal evaluators, we are focusing on the health and structure of the research-practice partnership and evaluating how effectively the RPP:

• Remains centered on equity?
• Identifies and collects pilot year data with an equity lens?
• Trains the facilitators?
• Pilots the workshop with the newly trained facilitators?
• Raises awareness for and recruitment of teachers to take summer CS PD?
• Identifies and collects pilot year data with an equity lens?

Recruitment challenges caused the initial workshop scheduled for February 2022 to be rescheduled for November 2022. We look forward to evaluating and providing feedback on this process.

Written by Angelica Thompson, Senior Education Researcher, CSEdResearch.org