DIR staff co-authors new report on Research-Practice Partnerships in the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Program

The 2012–17 Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) contract cycle introduced an important change in the program: that each REL conducted the majority of their work in close partnership with practitioner stakeholders. Together with REL research staff, “research alliance” members identified local or regional issues, carried out relevant research, disseminated findings and products, and built their capacity to understand and use research and data. Dr. Ron McCowan, DIR senior researcher, and Cynthia Castaldo-Walsh, DIR Senior Research Associate,  co-authored the report “Regional Educational Laboratory researcher-practitioner partnerships: Documenting the research alliance experience” for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) under the Analytic Technical Assistance and Development contract.  This report adds to the growing literature base on researcher-practitioner partnerships by sharing how the RELs reported creating, engaging, and maintaining multiple partnerships, with the purpose of informing future collaborative efforts for researchers and practitioners and for those who wish to support research-practice partnerships.

View, download, and print the full report Volume 3 as a PDF file (1.7 MB)

Heather Morrison co-authors recent publication

Congratulations to DIR’s director of data collection on the recent publication of “Improving Measures of Sexual and Gender Identity in English and Spanish to Identify LGBT Older Adults in Surveys.” Ms. Morrison co-authored the article, which was published in LGBT Health, Volume 4, Number 6, 2017, the premier peer-reviewed journal dedicated to promoting optimal healthcare for millions of sexual- and gender-minority people. You can access the publication at http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/lgbt.2016.0168.

Dr. Jenny Nguyen co-authors article in the official journal of the Armed Forces

This fall, Dr. Jenny Nguyen, a DIR research associate, co-authored and published “Military Service and Physical Capital: Framing Musculoskeletal Disorders among American Military Veterans Using Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Cultural Capital.” in the December 4, 2017, issue of Armed Forces & Society. Using the 2012–2014 National Health Interview Survey, the paper shows that veterans are more likely to report activity-limiting MSDs and at younger ages, compared to nonveterans. The paper uses Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital to contextualize veterans’ greater rates of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). You can access the article at   http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0095327X17741888.

Upward Bound at 50: Reporting on Implementation Practices Today

Launched in 1965, Upward Bound (UB) is one of the flagship federal college access programs targeted to low-income or potential first-generation college students. This evaluation report is based on a on a 2013 survey of regular UB project directors and examines the approaches that UB projects use to provide core program services. While legislation prescribes the seven core services to be offered to students, findings suggest

• Similarities in how Upward Bound projects focus and deliver only some core services
• Variation across projects operated (“hosted”) by different kinds of institutions and in different locales

View, download, and print the executive summary as a PDF file (596 KB)
View, download, and print the report as a PDF file (4.7 MB)