Generalizability and Accessibility of Causal Evidence in Educational Practice.

Three factors tend to remove classroom teachers from any direct benefits from formal research: (1) the difficulty of replicating the exact circumstances of the study in the classroom; (2) the scarcity of research which claims to show a "significant difference"; and (3) the complexity of reporting, in formal research journals and reports, which tends to intimidate individuals who lack needed interpretation skills. This paper examines these problems and proposes an approach to dealing with the problems of generalizability of research findings and accessibility of research evidence. It is suggested that laboratory schools are appropriate sites under which to undertake research that can obtain causal evidence of the success or failure of new hypotheses which are directly applicable to the real circumstances of the classroom. It is also suggested that colleges of education maintain a constant emphasis upon the value of the teacher's remaining in touch with current research. (JD)