From Research to Policy: A Study of IES-Funded RCTs in Education Policy Documents (WP-26-26)
Lydia Bradford, Alonzo Lepper, Alexander Furnas, Larry Hedges, and Elizabeth Tipton
Education research aims to inform policy and practice, a goal central to the Institution of Education sciences; however, there has been limited empirical evidence on whether this goal has been achieved. This study examines this question through investigating the reach of IES-funded efficacy, replication, scale-up, and effectiveness studies to government policy documents. To answer this, this study combined 528 IES funded grants between 2002 and 2022 with their publications and then with meta-analysis and policy documents that cited those publications. Results find that 70% of all IES grants will eventually reach government policy, and those that do reach government policy, will reach on average 6 government policy documents. On average, it takes the grants 8.2 years from time of funding to first government policy document citation (for those that will ultimately reach a government policy document). Overall, these findings offer empirical evidence on the reach of IES funded grants on policy.