Writing About Educational Research Related to Research–Practice Partnerships

Most Articles Discuss RPP Operations in the Location of Methods, Biographies, Introductions

Most articles conducted within an RPP discussed their RPP in operational terms—who was in their partnership, how they exchanged data for the study, or what the partnership was examining together. For example, over half the articles (n = 13) discussed their RPP in the Methods section. Most of the mentions of RPPs in the Methods sections were best characterized as how the RPP work related to the methods used in the research. In most cases, the article authors mentioned the term research–practice partnership once in the Methods section and generally did not discuss the concept in depth. For example, Stein and Grigg (2019) explained, “Our data come from City Schools’ administrative data held by the Baltimore Education Research Consortium, a research–practice partnership between Johns Hopkins University, Morgan State University, and Baltimore City Public Schools” (p. 1840). Sun et al. (2019) wrote, “We obtained these reports through a research–practice partnership with OSPI [Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction], then extracted information from these reports, from originals in PDF format into Excel spreadsheets using Python” (p. 515).

The next place the more operational RPP characteristics were discussed was in the authors’ biographical statements (n = 7). The biographies shared that the researcher specialized in research where they were engaged in RPPs or some type of collaborative research. For example, in Kane and Rosenquist (2019), one of the author’s biographies stated, “His research interests center on data-driven school improvement, research–practice partnerships, and policies and structures to improve student engagement and motivation” (p. 1718). One of the biographies in the Thompson et al. (2019) article stated, “Her research focuses on understanding and promoting equitable knowledge building within educational communities, including but not limited to classrooms and research–practice partnerships” (p. 22). This mention of the RPP in the biography may be specific to one journal given that five of six of the AERJ articles had authors that listed the RPP work in their biographies, and only two other articles in AERA Open and EEPA had this characteristic.

Interestingly, five of the articles, at least one across each of the four journals, discussed the RPP in the Introduction to the article by mentioning some operational characteristics of the RPP. In Murphy and Johnson (2023), the Introduction stated, “Through a research partnership with a large, urban school district in California, we employ student-level data across seven cohorts of kindergarten students to examine the relation between EL status and SPED placement” (p. 312). Cerda-Smith et al. (2024) wrote, “This study describes a research–practice partnership between developmental scientists and partner school leaders to explore student outcomes associated with the Stamped Intervention” (p. 2). Sometimes the authors who mentioned the RPP in their Introduction came back to mention it again as a limitation, such as Murphy and Johnson (2023), when they wrote, “The data come from one district with . . . a mature research–practice partnership with a large research university, so the findings may be influenced by this context” (p. 330). Two articles discussed their RPP in the Introduction and discussed it in the Implication sections of the article. For example, Armstrong-Carter et al. (2023) used the Implications section to advocate for other RPPs like theirs by writing, “Of primary importance, we demonstrate the feasibility of forming and maintaining interdisciplinary partnerships between researchers and local and statewide school departments of education” (p. 13).

Most Articles Explained Partner Contributions by Naming the Partner in the RPP

Given that naming the practice or community partner in an article discussing RPP work is usually a negotiated terrain, it is interesting that more than half the articles (11 of 20) named their RPP or their practice partner. Generally, some RPPs have explicit policies for always naming the RPP and the practice partner when publishing, and other RPPs choose to go through a process of internal review to decide on whether to name the RPP and practice partner. For example, the partnership named by Stein and Grigg (2019) had formal processes, what is referred to as a “no surprises” clause that they operationalized with a 30-day period of review before publication (Connolly et al., 2012). Other RPPs name their partners in their academic articles because the nature of their work and their data sets are already in the public eye. For example, Patrick et al. (2021) described their partnership and resulting dataset as “an annual survey of all public-school educators in Tennessee developed in partnership between TDOE [Tennessee Department of Education] and the Tennessee Education Research Alliance (TERA)” (p. 6). It could be that the public nature of this survey, which is explained on TERA’s website as an “annual joint effort” between TERA and TDOE, and the unique characteristics of the dataset provide an avenue for the authors to name the members of the RPP in articles (Vanderbilt University, 2024).

Few RPP Articles Explain Partner Contributions Through Co-Authorship and Acknowledgment

Different from naming the RPP or partner organizations, a minority of the 20 articles taking place in an RPP took steps to acknowledge their practice partner through co-authorship or discussing their practice partner in the Acknowledgments. As seen in Table 1, only four articles appeared to have a co-author that could be a practice partner. Similarly, four articles thanked their practice partner in the Acknowledgments section of the article. Woulfin (2018) wrote, “I am grateful for the coaches and district and school leaders engaging in our research–practice partnership so that educators learn every day so all students learn” (p. 14). Rodriguez and Hunter (2021) wrote, “The authors acknowledge the many individuals at the Tennessee Education Research Alliance and the Tennessee Department of Education for providing data and expert insight” (p. 675) and went on to name specific people in the RPP that were helpful. It is possible that the authors acknowledged the contributions in other areas aside from these publications through co-presentation or other means, but acknowledgment was not foregrounded in these articles.

Few Articles Discuss the Nature of the RPP

Probably most telling are the patterns in articles for how authors explain why they are engaged in an RPP, the approach they use in their RPP work, and the added value of the RPP to the research. Five of the 20 articles explained the “why,” or the purpose for the authors engaging in an RPP, by referencing literature about the importance of RPPs. For example, in Murillo et al. (2021), the authors explained in the Methods section, “the RPP allows the research team to participate in critical reflection across the three studies, noting the design, culture, and response of City School related to immigration issues across time” (p. 4). Then Russell et al. (2020)explained why a method was appropriate to use to achieve the RPP’s goals by writing, “Our work to test and refine a model for mathematics instructional coaching employed a DBIR approach (Penuel et al., 2011). DBIR is an appropriate method for organizing research–practice partnerships aimed at addressing complex problems of practice” (p. 444). These explanations of why they work in an RPP are still typically discussed in the Methods section.

Three of the 20 articles discussed the value RPPs add to the study. For example, Kazemi et al. (2022) explained the purpose of their RPP by writing, “The overarching purpose of the RPP is to understand and support school leaders to transform the learning environments within the schools to make them collaborative, joyful, identity affirming, and meaningful places for adult and student learning” (p. 1062). The authors explained how the RPP developed the “professional learning infrastructure at the school in the first three years of the School Improvement Grant (SIG) through the RPP” (p. 1063). The RPP added practical value by building an infrastructure—“The teacher learning system”—that the principal continued to use after the grant’s completion (p. 1063). This explanation came in a section titled, “Study Context,” that sits within the Methods section.

One RPP Article Involved a Positionality Statement or Discussed the Relationality of the Authors

Across all 20 articles taking place in an RPP, only one article explained in some depth the author’s positionality or relationality in the RPP. As mentioned in the Methods section of this article, these statements were not a fail-safe way of adjusting for privileges and status that come from being a researcher. Although an imperfect practice, RPP-related articles with positionality statements provide an approach for other authors to explain their RPP-related research. The article by Posselt et al. (2023) had a section describing the authors’ positionalities within their Methods section. The authors explained their discipline-specific expertise, their role in the academy (faculty vs. doctoral student), and their gender and racial identities. As we turn to the articles published about research examining RPPs, it is interesting to ponder why only one article of research taking place within an RPP had a positionality statement or some sort of reflexivity about the authors’ positions, identities, and stances as researchers.

Not Surprising, Articles Located Their Discussion of Qualitative Approaches in the Methods Section

The methods used across studies examining education RPPs generally were qualitative in nature. Almost half, eight of the 17 articles, appeared to use case study methods. Three of the 17 articles said that they were building a conceptual framework. Other methods used included grounded theory, ethnography, data collection through surveys, a multicohort, longitudinal experiment, design-based research, discourse analysis, and document analysis, among other methods. The methods may have been influenced by the nature of studying a phenomenon such as RPPs; the research needed to capture organizational, team, and individual dynamics and processes that might require more nuanced data collection and analysis. The methods used influenced the types of information the authors shared about their study, including the context of the RPP where the research was taking place, with qualitative methods potentially explaining more about the study contexts when describing a case study, for example.

It’s important to note that the methods and approach to research used in these studies of RPPs influenced which journal authors might submit their research to and which journals would accept those studies. For example, since 2016, there has only been one article published in AERJ about research examining RPPs, an article by Shirrell et al. (2023), and two articles published in EEPA. In contrast, AERA Open hosted a special issue featuring empirical research examining RPPs resulting in 10 articles being published, and ER has published four articles about research examining RPPs. This pattern may discourage researchers examining RPPs to submit their research to AERJ or EEPA and consequently influence the formats used when writing about these studies and the types of articles summarizing studies that make it through peer review.

Most Articles Locate Their Discussion of the Role of the Researcher in the Methods Section

Studies examining RPPs may inspire and require researchers to adopt different, more collaborative roles and research methods given the norms of RPPs. To understand whether authors were engaged in more traditional or collaborative research, I examined how the role of the researcher was explained in these research articles examining RPPs. For example, nine of the 17 articles explicitly explained their role in the RPP being studied, with most of the authors implying that they were engaged in the RPP work itself or the researcher adopted collaborative methods in their research of the RPP. Authors’ discussions of their role mostly took place in the Methods section (n = 7). For example, Ghiso et al. (2019) wrote, “Because the authors of this article are members of the research team, we also wrote memos capturing our own experiences in the RPP in relation to the interview questions” (p. 5). Wegemer and Renick (2021) wrote, “We were employed as graduate student researchers by the University of California, Irvine, to perform the bulk of the partnership tasks” (p. 4). Two other approaches explaining the role of the authors in relation to the RPP included mentioning it in the Introduction (e.g., “As researchers, we worked collaboratively with . . . MATCH Teacher Coaching (MTC) program”; Blazar & Kraft, 2019, p. 2) or mentioning it in a table displaying data (Thompson et al., 2019), where the authors described the roles of researchers and practitioners across different phases of development in their networked improvement community. Five of the 17 articles did not explain the role of the researcher in relation to the RPP. There was only one article, by Shirrell et al. (2023), where the authors explicitly explained that they had no formal role in the RPP by writing, “The authors had no roles in or relationships with either alliance” (p. 1233).

About Half the Articles Explained Partner Contributions by Naming the RPP Being Studied

As with the frequency of explaining the role of the researcher in these studies of RPPs, almost half the studies examining RPPs named the partnership they were studying (eight of 17). For example, Farrell et al. (2022) wrote, “Supported by the National Science Foundation, the MIST project was organized as an RPP between university-based researchers and educational leaders in four large school districts that served a total of 360,000 students” (p. 202). In most cases where the RPP was named in studies examining an RPP, the researchers explained their role within the RPP they were studying. For example, Weddle (2023) wrote, “The RPP was established in June 2020 as a working group within the EL Collaborative of the CCSSO [Council of Chief State School Officers] and expanded over time to include SEA [State Education Agency] leaders who were not Collaborative members” (p. 5). Weddle also went on to write, “Within the RPP, I serve as a participant facilitating partnership activities” and a as “researcher learning from members’ experiences engaging in the partnership” (p. 6). Where the RPP was not named, some authors chose to explain why. For example, in the Notes section, Zala-Mezö and Datnow (2024) explained that they were not naming their “project team members” in the Acknowledgments section “for the purposes of confidentiality” (p. 17).

Fewer Articles Acknowledge Partner Contributions by Sharing Appreciations or Co-authorship

Although more than half the articles examining RPPs named the RPP, it was less clear the authors’ approaches to acknowledging their appreciation for the members of the RPPs being studied. For example, only four of 17 of the article authors provided acknowledgments to the RPPs they were studying. These appreciations came sometimes in the Acknowledgment section of the article and sometimes in the Notes and were for the most part anonymized to more generalizable roles of their practice partners in their community or organization. Ghiso et al. (2019) used the Acknowledgment section to appreciate the “families, leaders, youth, and graduate students who have enriched the partnership” (p. 11). Weddle (2023) used the Notes section to appreciate “the educators, leaders, and community members who participated in our research, especially the state education agency leaders with whom we continue to partner closely” (p. 259). Three of the 17 articles acknowledged their partners by seeming to make their partners co-authors of their research examining their RPP. It is important to note that the practice of acknowledging and naming the RPP being studied could be stymied by the constraints of human subjects’ agreements requiring confidentiality or anonymity. Therefore, it could be that sharing appreciations of the RPP or adding partners as co-authors is limited in these articles examining RPPs given institutional research agreements, among other reasons.

Few Articles Discuss the Authors’ Positionality or Relationality

As with the lagging documentation of appreciation for the RPPs being studied, there was an even smaller number of articles that appear to discuss the authors’ positionality or relationality. Three of the 17 articles appeared to discuss the authors’ positionality or relationality. As seen in Table 3, one article had specific positionality statements in the Methods section that use the subheading “Positionality,” and two articles discussed their positionality in less specific terms without a formal subheading in their Methods section. In her article examining RPPs, Weddle (2023) explained her professional background and her role in the RPP. Weddle said that her role was as “a participant facilitating partnership activities, as well as a researcher learning from members’ experiences engaging in the partnership” (p. 6). Weddle went on to describe how her role as a researcher both studying the RPP and engaging in the RPP allowed the state leaders in the partnership to trust her as an insider.

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Table 3

Positionality-related statements in research related to research–practice partnerships (RPPs)

Article	RPP-related article type	Excerpt from positionality statement	Location of positionality statement
Pollock et al. (2024)	Research examining RPPs	“Our purpose in the remainder of this conversation starter is to convey some of the basic, ground-level reflection and self-critique we undertake and foster when codesigning such projects with care and coherence for improving education opportunities for students often under-supported in local systems” (p. 4).	Header: “Case Study: Expanding University-GeneratedContributions to Local K–12 Teaching and Learning”
Posselt et al. (2023)	Research taking place in an RPP	“Our research team represents diverse disciplines, professional roles, and social identities, which informed our interpretation of data and engagement with the research” (p. 9).	Methods, subheading Positionalities
Weddle (2023)	Research examining RPPs	“Recognizing the importance of attending to positionality (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Paris & Winn, 2013), I write from the vantage point of an early career scholar with a commitment to equity focused collaborative research” (p. 6).	Methods, subheading Positionality
Wegemer and Renick (2021)	Research examining RPPs	“Last, once we finalized the themes, we applied additional reflexivity to identify potential limitations in perspectives and further refine our findings, as we occupied dual positions as participants and analysts (Eriksson et al., 2012)” (p. 5).	Methods, subheading Analytic Strategy

In contrast, two articles did not have subheading titled “Positionality” in the Methods section, but they both explicitly discussed their relationality in different ways. Pollock et al. (2024) described the process of “reflection and self-critique” that they as researchers took when engaging in collaborative research (p. 4). They explained the process they used to attend to their relationships with their community partners and the influence this may have had on their research. Wegemer and Renick (2021) also explained their relationality. Within their Methods section, they used the subheading “Analytic Strategy” to discuss how they applied their “reflexivity” to acknowledge limitations and attend to the “dual position” they occupied as both researchers and practitioners in the RPP.

RPP-Related Research Could Require Documentation of the RPP Context

Consequently, this might require authors to answer a set of questions to explain the context and condition for the RPP being examined or the RPP in which the research was produced: What is the rationale for working as an RPP (as opposed to conducting research using traditional relationships)? What contexts influence how this RPP operates and the research it produces? What limitations does the RPP add (if any) to the research findings? Arce-Trigatti and Resnick (2023) suggested describing the “underlying components” of an RPP that both add value and also present limitations to the research. It is not clear that this information needs to go into the Methods sections, although it could (p. 24).

Based on the findings from this analysis, it seems that most authors in the sample of both research taking place in an RPP and research examining an RPP named the RPP they were working in or studying, discussed whether the authors were engaged in the RPP, and discussed the RPP in the Introduction, Methods section, and biographies of the authors. Both the naming and the description of the RPP-related research in different parts of the article implied that these authors could add a few more details about the purpose and context of the RPP being studied to honor any joint work while not radically changing their manuscript. For example, Ehrenfeld (2022) wrote in the Introduction to their article, “The overall project was a research–practice partnership with a PD organization, where we used video to support secondary mathematics teachers’ teams in improving their practice” (p. 490). In this case, I would argue that Ehrenfeld is using the pronoun we to explain the joint nature of the work, even though the focus is on improving their or the teachers’ practice. This quote from Ehrenfeld (2022) also models how to explain the purpose of the RPP, that is, to “support secondary mathematics teachers’ teams to improve their practice.” This description of the RPP provides a lot of information about the context and purpose of the RPP, suggesting that it would be possible to explain these aspects of an RPP in a few, thoughtful sentences.

Other articles added this information describing the RPP context and purpose to the Limitations section of the article. Three of the articles discussing research conducted in an RPP discussed the limitations of conducting research in an RPP. For example, Murphy and Johnson (2023) explained these limitations by writing, “The data come from one district with a long history of serving a large, diverse EL student population and a mature research–practice partnership with a large research university, so the findings may be influenced by this context” (p. 330). Somewhere in the article, the authors writing about RPP-related research need to describe the RPP’s context and purpose that influence the research the authors produced.

RPP-Related Research Could Require Documentation via Acknowledgment and Reflexivity

For the members of the RPP engaged in the research or the members of the RPP being studied by researchers, they could explore questions to more explicitly discuss the communication and engagement needed to live up to the criteria for RPP effectiveness. Questions could include, How do members of the RPP want to be acknowledged—naming the RPP, co-authorship, or explicit acknowledgment of the RPP in the Notes or Acknowledgments sections? What are the authors’ roles in relation to this RPP? How do RPP members work together? How do RPP members decide how and who to communicate their findings? To do what Arce-Trigatti and Resnick (2023) suggest where RPP-related research disrupts traditional practices in formatting and publishing research, I argue that these questions need to be discussed among RPP members explicitly ahead of pursuing publication.

In the study findings, fewer RPP-related research articles thoroughly acknowledge practice partners’ contributions. For example, there are different variations for how authors explain their relationship to the RPP and whether they choose to maintain anonymity of the RPP during the acknowledgment of RPP participants. Starting with the example demonstrating more acknowledgment while also anonymizing, Kazemi et al. (2022) wrote in their Acknowledgments section, “We are indebted to the students, teachers, principal, and instructional coaches at Hilltop Elementary (pseudonym) for their partnership in creating a powerful learning environment for all of us” (p. 1084). Zala-Mezö and Datnow (2024) acknowledged their appreciation for their RPP partners and also wrote, “For the purposes of confidentiality, we do not list individual members by name” (p. 17). However, in a study where researchers are studying an RPP, Duff et al. (2023) wrote in their Notes section, “All researchers in the study were external to the two partnerships we studied” (p. 24), but they provided less detail or acknowledgment for the members of the RPPs themselves they were studying.

In addition to acknowledgment of partners, more studies could use reflexivity or even positionality statements to explain the researchers’ role and orientation for engaging with the RPP. Based on the lack of articles where authors examined their own identities and experiences in relation to the RPP work, I would argue that this is an area of the field that needs further exploration. The field could draw on other methods, potentially critical (Young & Diem, 2024), humanizing (Paris & Winn, 2013), or decolonizing (Patel, 2015) research methods, that could support reflexivity or relationality without a positionality statement in the article. These questions need further study within a larger sample of articles given that only four of the articles in the whole sample had something resembling a positionality statement and potentially with a sample of articles outside the field of education.

RPP-Related Research Could Explain the Purpose and Value of the RPP

These concepts from the CBPR publishing guidelines suggest that authors of RPP-related research who want to explain beyond the simpler operations of their RPP might explore a set of questions suggested by Bordeaux et al. (2007): How does the RPP work? Why does the RPP exist? What value does the RPP add to the research? From the study findings, few articles taking place in RPPs discuss the purpose and value of working in the RPP. As mentioned in the Findings section, one article by Murillo et al. (2021) discussed the value of working in an RPP by writing, “The RPP allows the research team to participate in critical reflection across the three studies, noting the design, culture, and response of City School related to immigration issues across time” (p. 4) or the justification by Russell et al. (2020) for using a certain collaborative research method (e.g., Design Based Implementation Research) to help explain the purpose for working in an RPP. Most of the articles in this study explained some variation of the RPP operations or addressed the question, How does the RPP work? Few of the articles addressed the purpose or “why” of the RPP or what value the RPP brings to the research? As the field of RPPs looks to advance its norms and principles for writing about and publishing their work, this could be an area for further growth.

Yet, how should the field decide what formats would best represent the intent of RPP-related research? If as Arce-Trigatti and Resnick (2023) suggest and RPP-related research and writing should not follow traditional formatting, reporting, and publishing practices, then what principles or guidelines should it follow? These questions merit further discussion in future research or debate within the field. In the long term, it would be my hope that the concepts, questions, and suggested formats outlined in Table 5, which summarizes key points in the discussion and interpretation of this study’s findings, could be a nascent set of guidelines for writing about RPP-related research that could be debated and improved by the field. I invite members of the field of education RPPs to view these questions as a starting place with the vision that they are used, analyzed, picked apart, and recreated into more formal guidelines that could influence the field of RPP-related research. In the short term, the findings from this study and questions in Table 5 suggest some implications for authors, reviewers, and journal editors that could influence writing and publishing of RPP-related research in the short term.

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Table 5

Questions for preparing research related to research–practice partnerships (RPPs) for publication in journals.

Concept	Questions to be addressed	Potential places to discuss
RPP research is best described as joint work.	• What is the purpose of working as an RPP (as opposed to conducting research using traditional relationships)?• What contexts influence how this RPP operates and the research it produces?• What limitations does the RPP add (if any) to the research findings?	• Abstract• Introduction• Methods• Findings• Limitations• Other sections
Effective RPP research makes communication and documentation of research findings collaborative.	• How do members of the RPP want to be acknowledged—naming the RPP, co-authorship, or explicit acknowledgment of the RPP in the Notes or Acknowledgments section?• What are the authors’ roles in relation to this RPP?• How do RPP members work together?• How do RPP members decide how and to whom to communicate their findings?• How do authors address issues of positionality and reflexivity in this RPP-related research?• Are there other methods used, potentially critical (e.g., Young & Diem, 2024), humanizing (Paris & Winn, 2013), or decolonizing (Patel, 2015) research methods, that could support reflexivity without a positionality statemen in the article?	• Acknowledgments• Co-authorship• Naming of the RPP• Author biography• Positionality statement in Methods section• Discussion of reflexivity in each section of the article or within the Methods section• Roles explained in Methods or Notes
Authors of RPP-related research can look to other disciplines for publishing guidance.	• How does the RPP work?• Why does the RPP exist?• What value does the RPP add to the research?	• Abstract• Introduction• Methods• Findings• Limitations• Other sections