Influencing educational change through policy-engaged research

In this essay we begin with a discussion of what we call the "great gap" between our research and its influence on society. We point out that although there is ample evidence speaking to these areas, a lack of societal change suggests that evidence has largely gone unnoticed, ignored, or not well promoted or disseminated. Throughout this section, we provide thoughts on why this research has failed to convince stakeholders and offer suggestions on what educational psychologists could (and should) do differently. Next, we talk about the utility of "policy-engaged" scholarship. A scholar adopting policy-engaged framework or research identity is one who aims to carry out the research enterprise with the goal of studying, describing, informing, or influencing the policies that drive the educational practices they seek to understand and improve. Throughout our discussion, we offer examples for how educational psychology science might be utilized, applied, and/or created to study questions of education policy. We end with recommendations for how the field might move forward to better inform educational policy and the educational practices the field aims to improve.