What Is Education Research? Fields, Methods, Funding, and Careers

Education research is the systematic study of teaching, learning, and the institutions that organize them. It asks how people learn, which instructional approaches work and for whom, how learning can be measured fairly, and how schools, colleges, and education systems shape outcomes. It is an unusually broad field: it draws on psychology, sociology, economics, statistics, linguistics, and policy analysis, and it is conducted by faculty in schools of education, by research organizations, by government agencies, and by practitioners inside school districts. This guide explains what the field covers, its main subfields, its methods, a short history, the major funders, and the privacy and human-subjects rules that apply to research in educational settings. For the grant landscape in more detail, see CASRAI’s companion page on education research funding.

What education research studies

The field is organized around a few recurring kinds of question:

• Description. What is happening in classrooms, schools, and systems? Who enrolls, persists, and completes, and how do experiences differ across groups? Large national statistical programs and ethnographic studies of single classrooms both serve this purpose.
• Explanation. Why do learning outcomes differ? Explanations draw on cognition (how knowledge is represented and retained), motivation, family and community context, school organization, and policy.
• Effectiveness. Does a curriculum, program, teaching practice, or policy improve an outcome compared with what would have happened otherwise? This is the question evaluation research is built to answer.
• Measurement. How can learning, skills, and school quality be measured validly and fairly? Assessment research sits at the foundation of every other strand.

Education research is not limited to K-12 schooling. It also covers early childhood education, special education, postsecondary and adult education, workforce training, informal learning in museums and online settings, and teacher preparation and professional development.

Major subfields

• Learning sciences. An interdisciplinary area that studies learning as it happens in real settings, combining cognitive science, the social sciences, computer science, and design. Learning scientists often work in design-based research, iteratively building and testing learning environments, and in the study of technology-supported learning.
• Educational psychology. Applies psychological theory and methods to learning, development, motivation, and instruction. It overlaps with the applied branches described in CASRAI’s psychology guide, including school psychology and developmental research.
• Assessment, measurement, and psychometrics. The design and validation of tests and other instruments: reliability, validity, fairness, test scaling, and the statistical models used to score and compare results. It also includes classroom (formative) assessment research and large-scale assessment programs.
• Curriculum and instruction research. Studies what is taught and how: the design, enactment, and effects of curricula, subject-specific teaching (mathematics, literacy, science, computer science education), and teacher practice.
• Evaluation research. Assesses whether programs and policies achieve their goals, using randomized and quasi-experimental designs as well as implementation and cost studies. It is closely tied to evidence-based policy.
• Sociology and policy of education. Examines inequality, school choice, school finance, accountability, and governance. It draws on sociology, economics, and public policy.
• Special education research. Focuses on children and adults with disabilities, early intervention, and instruction for students with specific learning needs.
• Higher education research. Studies access, retention, completion, student success, college governance, and postsecondary labor-market outcomes.
• Language and literacy research. Studies reading, writing, bilingual and multilingual learning, and second-language acquisition, with links to linguistics.

Methods

Education research uses the full range of social-science methods, and which one fits depends on the question rather than on a ranking of methods.

Randomized controlled trials

When the question is whether an intervention causes an outcome, random assignment is the strongest design because it makes the compared groups equivalent in expectation. In education, assignment often happens at the level of classrooms or schools rather than individual students, because students in the same classroom share teachers and materials. These cluster-randomized trials need larger samples than their individual-level equivalents, and analysts must account for the similarity of students within a cluster. See the dictionary entries for experimental design and effect size.

Quasi-experimental designs

Randomization is often impractical or unethical in schools, for example when a policy has already been rolled out. Quasi-experimental designs estimate causal effects without random assignment, using matched comparison groups, difference-in-differences, interrupted time series, regression discontinuity, or instrumental variables. The classic reference for this tradition is Campbell and Stanley’s 1963 chapter on experimental and quasi-experimental designs for research on teaching. Their credibility rests on how well the design rules out selection and other confounding explanations.

Observational, survey, and administrative-data research

Much of the field relies on large longitudinal data: national surveys, state longitudinal data systems that link student records across years, and assessment results. These data support descriptive and correlational analysis and, with careful design, causal analysis. They also raise the privacy questions covered below.

Qualitative and mixed methods

Classroom observation, interviews, ethnography, case studies, and document analysis explain how and why programs work, how they are implemented, and how participants experience them. Mixed-methods studies pair these with quantitative outcomes. Design-based research, common in the learning sciences, is a hybrid that builds an intervention while studying it.

Threats to validity and generalization

Education research has to deal with attrition, contamination between treatment and comparison classrooms, differences in how faithfully a program is implemented, and the question of whether results from one district transfer elsewhere. See generalisability and observer bias, and CASRAI’s research methods hub for the wider methodological landscape.

A short history of the field

Systematic inquiry into education has long roots in philosophy, but empirical education research took shape in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. John Dewey founded the laboratory school at the University of Chicago in 1896 as a site for studying teaching and learning, and psychologists such as Edward Thorndike pushed for measurement-based approaches to learning and instruction. The American Educational Research Association (AERA) was founded in 1916 and remains the largest scholarly society in the field in the United States.

The mid-twentieth century added large-scale social science. The 1966 report Equality of Educational Opportunity, widely known as the Coleman Report, was commissioned under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and examined the relationship between school resources and student achievement at national scale. The Tennessee STAR class-size experiment of the late 1980s became one of the best-known large randomized experiments in education. Federal research support was institutionalized in stages, culminating in the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002, which created the Institute of Education Sciences and, with it, a stronger federal emphasis on rigorous evidence of what works. The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 later wrote evidence tiers into federal education law, distinguishing strong, moderate, and promising evidence and interventions that demonstrate a rationale.

More recently the field has absorbed learning analytics, educational data mining, and artificial intelligence in education, along with open-science practices such as preregistration and data sharing. CASRAI’s psychology replication crisis guide describes the reproducibility debate that also shaped education research practice.

Key institutions, evidence repositories, and societies

Institute of Education Sciences and the What Works Clearinghouse

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education, established by the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002. It has four centers: the National Center for Education Research (NCER), the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE), and the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER). NCER and NCSER fund research grants; NCES collects and reports national education statistics; and NCEE conducts evaluations and supports the Regional Educational Laboratories, the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), and the What Works Clearinghouse.

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) reviews research on education programs, practices, and policies against published standards and summarizes the strength of the evidence. Under those standards, a well-implemented randomized study can meet standards without reservations, while a quasi-experimental study can at best meet standards with reservations. Researchers use WWC standards when designing studies, and funders often expect applications to be consistent with them. IES has been undergoing reorganization and changes to its programs and contracts, so confirm the current status of its programs and solicitations at ies.ed.gov before planning around them.

Societies and journals

AERA publishes journals including the American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, and the Review of Educational Research. Other societies include the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE), which focuses on causal evidence, and, in the United Kingdom, the British Educational Research Association (BERA). In the UK, the Education Endowment Foundation, established in 2011, funds and synthesizes trials of interventions for disadvantaged pupils. Education research also appears in discipline journals in psychology, economics, and sociology.

Who funds education research

• IES. NCER and NCSER run competitive research grant programs and training programs. Applications go through peer review. Program details and deadlines change, so check the current IES funding opportunities page.
• National Science Foundation. NSF’s Directorate for STEM Education (EDU) supports research on STEM learning and teaching. Its Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) houses programs including Discovery Research PreK-12 (DRK-12), Advanced Technological Education (ATE), Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL), and Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST). Program names, solicitations, and availability change; confirm them on nsf.gov. See CASRAI’s NSF grants overview for how NSF funding works in general.
• NIH. Education-related training and curriculum activities are supported through the R25 grant mechanism, mainly for science education and workforce development rather than classroom pedagogy.
• Private foundations. The Spencer Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation are long-standing funders of education and youth-development research.
• International funders. The UK’s ESRC funds education research alongside other social science, and the Education Endowment Foundation funds trials in England.

The page on education research funding covers these funders and application practicalities in more depth.

Student privacy and human-subjects rules in educational settings

Research in schools involves minors and educational records, so two sets of rules apply together: privacy law about student data and research-ethics regulation about participants.

FERPA and student data

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protects the privacy of student education records at institutions that receive U.S. Department of Education funds. In general, personally identifiable information from education records cannot be disclosed without consent. FERPA includes exceptions, one of which allows an educational agency or institution to disclose such information, without consent, to organizations conducting studies for or on its behalf to develop, validate, or administer predictive tests, administer student aid programs, or improve instruction. Disclosure under that studies exception requires a written agreement that specifies the purpose, scope, and duration of the study and the information to be disclosed. Researchers working with identifiable records should confirm the legal basis for access with their institution’s counsel or privacy office. See the dictionary entry for FERPA. Separately, the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) governs certain student surveys, and state student-privacy laws may add requirements.

IRB review and exemptions

Federally supported research with human subjects is governed by the Common Rule (45 CFR 46), revised in 2018. Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) review research involving people; see IRB. The Common Rule exempts some categories from full review, and education research is a prominent beneficiary. Exemption 1, at 45 CFR 46.104(d)(1), covers research conducted in established or commonly accepted educational settings that specifically involves normal educational practices not likely to adversely affect students’ opportunity to learn required content or the assessment of educators. Typical examples are comparisons of instructional techniques, curricula, or classroom management methods. Other exemption categories, including educational tests, surveys, and interviews, carry conditions, and some do not apply to research with children. Whether a study qualifies is a determination for the institution’s IRB or designated reviewer, not the investigator alone. CASRAI explains the categories in IRB exempt categories 1-8, the difference between review levels in exempt vs expedited IRB review, and the concept in the entry on exempt human subjects research.

Training and career paths

• Doctoral training. Most researchers hold a PhD or EdD in education, educational psychology, learning sciences, measurement and statistics, or a related social-science field. IES has funded pre- and postdoctoral training programs aimed at preparing researchers in rigorous causal methods.
• Methods specializations. Quantitative methodologists in psychometrics, causal inference, and multilevel modeling are in particular demand, as are qualitative and mixed-methods specialists.
• Research-practice partnerships. Researchers increasingly work with school districts and state agencies on questions defined jointly with practitioners.
• Career destinations. University faculty, research organizations and evaluation firms, government agencies, school-district research offices, foundations, assessment and education-technology companies, and policy organizations.

Education research and research administration

Education research projects pose distinctive administrative questions. Data-use agreements with districts and states are often the longest lead item. Cluster-randomized trials require school recruitment months before data collection and span academic calendars, so budgets and timelines must be built around them. Subawards to districts and partner organizations are common. IRB determinations, parental consent and student assent procedures, and student-data security plans need to be settled before data collection starts. Sponsors increasingly expect data management and sharing plans; see CASRAI’s grants management hub for the broader lifecycle.

Frequently asked questions

What is education research in simple terms?

It is the scientific and scholarly study of how people learn and how teaching, curricula, schools, and education policies affect learning and other outcomes.

What is the difference between education research and educational psychology?

Educational psychology is one subfield of education research. It applies psychological theory to learning, motivation, and development. Education research also includes curriculum studies, policy and sociology of education, assessment, and evaluation.

What is the What Works Clearinghouse?

The What Works Clearinghouse is an IES initiative that reviews research on education programs and practices against published standards and reports how strong the evidence is. It is supported by the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance.

Are randomized controlled trials the only valid method in education research?

No. Randomized trials are the strongest design for causal questions about effectiveness, but descriptive, qualitative, and quasi-experimental methods answer other questions or are the only feasible option. The right method follows from the research question.

Does FERPA prevent researchers from using student records?

Not entirely. FERPA restricts disclosure of personally identifiable information without consent but includes exceptions, including a studies exception that requires a written agreement. De-identified data are handled differently. Always confirm the basis for access with the data-holding institution.

Is education research exempt from IRB review?

Some of it can be exempt from full review under the Common Rule, notably research on normal educational practices in established educational settings, but the determination is made by the IRB or its designee, and exempt research still must be ethically conducted.

Who funds education research?

In the United States, mainly IES, NSF, NIH for some education-related programs, and private foundations such as Spencer and William T. Grant. See education research funding.

Related CASRAI guides

This guide is part of CASRAI’s series on academic disciplines. See the overview of the branches of science, the guides to psychology and sociology, and the guides to social work and public policy.