Bridging Research & Practice

With research funding from NIMH, W.T. Grant Foundation and Spencer Foundation, I co-led the Michigan School Program Information (MiSPI) project, which sought to understand the social networks through which public school educators acquire research evidence and implement evidence-based programs and practices. As part of this project, we collected statewide representative data from 382 Michigan superintendents and principals as well as interview data from 72 Michigan educators, 50 information brokers, and 12 researchers.  In our MiSPI work, we found that educators often rely on long chains of brokers to communicate information about potential programs to adopt in their schools, and that these chains often do not involve researchers. These findings suggest that when communicating information about school programs, researchers may be quite distant in the conversation. More recently, I have been interested in how networks can facilitate or constrain the implementation of new programs and practices.  Specifically, colleagues and I have found that features of principals' social networks (including bridging and bonding social capital) are associated with their acceptability and understanding  of systems-level interventions.

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