“Research for policy’s sake: The enlightenment function of social research.” Policy Analysis, 3 (4): 531-545 (1977). By Carol H. Weiss.
Every job I’ve held has focused on bringing the worlds of research and policy closer together. But it wasn’t until about five years ago that I read Carol Weiss’ classic 1977 article, “Research for policy’s sake: The enlightenment function of social research.” Educators tend to think of research use as being instrumental: A policy maker reads a report and uses it directly to make some decision. But Weiss points out that “government officials use research less to arrive at solutions than to orient themselves to problems.” This conceptual use of research is likely far more prevalent than the instrumental use we assume to be the norm, but it’s much harder to observe and measure. I only wish I had read this piece sooner. It would have made my work so much easier by expanding my notion of what it looks like for research to have a positive “impact” on practice, and by pointing me toward more effective strategies for making that happen.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carrie Conaway
CARRIE CONAWAY is is a senior lecturer on education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and former chief strategy and research officer for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. She is a coauthor of Common-Sense Evidence: The Education Leader’s Guide to Using Data and Research .
