infants cannot make perceptual distinctions and must be let alone, and so on and so on. The practical results have been changes in school curriculum, changes in educational provisions for gifted students, changes in child care centers and in due course in infant education. In short, ideas have consequences, and the function of educational research is to provide the ideas that will have educational consequences in speeding up educational innovation, improving evaluation techniques, altering instructional systems, etc.

But I think that I must point that almost none of the consequential research to which I refer began with these categories and purposes in mind.

. . The chief obstacle to the effectiveness of educational research . . . is the skepticism of educational personnel and of educational researchers themselves regarding the value of research, and particiularly of basic research for the improvement of education.

What needs to be done to increase the effectiveness of educational research is implicit in my preceding comments. There are of course many things that suggest themselves, not the least of which in my opinion is greater cooperation and communication between the Washington research community and the academic research community.

I suppose if I could do one thing and only one thing to improve the lot of research in education it would be to establish confidence in the power of ideas derived from systematic inquiry.

...

A contrasting view is stated succinctly by a leading advocate of educational development.

I think we should have learned by this time that our present educational R&D practices are relatively ineffective. We need much greater management and integration of research into larger projects having a relatively long life cycle. The research organization must not only be concerned with research but must have a responsibility for development and implementation. Indeed, it is questioned whether research is the most important aspect. I would almost reverse the emphasis with implementation being the most important, development next and research, while vital, still being the smallest component.

The latter opinion is partially echoed by a professor who is active in both research and development:

The major obstacle, as I see it, has been the lack of a system through which a purposive invention or better and more useful educational products and practices can be accomplished. One might go one step farther back in the cause chain and point out that a "myth of self-sufficiency" has been attached to our decentralized un-system.

And a systems analyst goes a step further and says:

It would seem desirable to chart the entire educational process so that all those involved both centrally and peripherally, can see the relative positionings and interatcions of the various elements, steps, processes and functions. This charting would permit identification of obvious gaps and duplications, would provide better systemization of the educational process, and most of all, would suggest where emphasis may need to be changed from time to time. Such capability would tie in with the objectives of establishing NIE and should become routine procedures instead of reaction to public clamor.

A late reply from a State department of education is explicit regarding the need for differentiation of tasks among types of agencies and coordination of effort:

The Department of Education has considerable difficulty in initiating extensive R&D programs on its own. Its better placed emphasis would be to concentrate on the demonstration and diffusion of already developed products. However, this implies a much greater coordination than currently exists between state departments of education, laboratories, R&D centers, the U.S. Office of Education, etc., etc.

The greatest weaknesses of R&D in the U.S. are that no overall planning or coordination exists and a great deal of wasted effort is the probable result. The greatest strength is that R&D seemingly is gaining favor among legislators and the general citizenry, particularly as frustration with the present operation of our schools increases.

A somewhat different view of coordination appears in the statement of a city superintendent of schools:

The lack of any mechanism to coordinate, channel, or set priorities for educational R&D will emerge as a major weakness when funds are available. Present and past efforts in educational R&D do not sufficiently support and supplement one another. They do not add up to a comprehensive program but rather make up a fragmented and disjointed effort.

The need for commitment to a process of improvement at all levels is stressed by a chief state school officer in a delayed reply:

The base of involvement must be increased if the goal is to use the product and in the end create a climate where continual renewal is possible. Just buying a product provides no security beyond that act. For involvement in the years ahead requires a commitment to the process. Every school district should have from 3-5 per cent of its budget assigned to this function so local boards see this as one of their rightful functions (also state departments but at a much higher level.) We still look at R&D as done by one group apart from the user. It must become a part of each organization if it is to become effective over the long range.

One former school and university administrator calls for attention to the higher aims of education:

Current obsession with achievement testing, particularly as reflected in performance contracting, may be driving us toward defining the aims of education in trivial terms. Can't we involve philosophers who can begin the reformations and transformations necessary to attract attention to grander aims for education than increasing pupil performance on a reading or arithmetic test?

Several respondents testify to important gains from the application of R&D to education, but few are as explicit as the director of longrange planning and development for a large city school system:

Among large urban school systems (Council of the Great City School which includes 30 per cent of the school population) the traditional role of research departments is being revised to include such technical support functions as (1) research and evaluation of programs and projects, (2) long-range and operations planning of programs and projects, (3) design and implementation of computerized educational planning and management information systems, and (4) the development and application to programs and projects techniques of systems thinking and cost-effectiveness analysis.

A city school superintendent from a different city makes the following plea for greater investment in research and development:

Increased federal assistance to alleviate the worsening crisis in educational program funding at all levels is inevitable. The quest for maximum effect with minimum outlay suggests that R&D should rate a high priority in access to such funds for the explicit purpose of helping to clarify goals and systematically exploring and evaluating alternative strategies for their attainment. Earmarked state and local funds would evidence similar commitment at those levels and would encourage investigation of more circumscribed—as distinguished from national-interests.

In passing, it may be noted that the late returns bring the responses to 70 per cent of all addressed, and 83 per cent of all other than local education authorities. The additional returns reflect much the same views expressed in earlier returns. The foregoing analysis of the responses to the inquiry reflects as accurately as possible the views of respondents without the injection of this writer's biases. The tabulation of the three checklists tells its own story; and the selection of comments is a wide one which encompasses every major point made by more than one respondent, and practically every point made strongly by even one respondent. This writer's generalizations and inferences are set forth in Part III.

Anyone who threads his way through the opinions expressed in Part II of this paper will be aware of the diversity of views held by those who are "on the scene" observers of educational research and development operations; but he will note also a striking convergence on certain points which are summarized below in outline form:

AREAS OF AGREEMENT

1. In attempting to apply systematic, large-scale research and development processes to education, we started at near zero capacity with respect to

(a) tested models or theories for producing planned change in an enterprise as complex, tradition-bound, and fragmented as education;

(b) knowledge in validated, readily available, form to guide specifications of objectives and processes;

(c) ability to plan a complex of interrelated activities leading from recognition of a need through all the steps required to satisfy the need:

(d) persons adequately trained and/or experienced in the application of systematic problem-solving and solution-testing processes to education;

(e) managerial capability for organizing, directing, and coordinating teams of specialists engaged in complex tasks of design and development;

(f) proven strategies for involvement of multiple educational agencies and concerned persons in planning, adaptation, and use of new approaches and facilities; and

(g) consensus on the results achievable and conditions essential for successful operation.

2. In the last seven years, and more clearly in the last five, significant progress has been made in

(a) the development of sets of integrated materials, facilities, and procedures for achievement of specified educational objectives:

(b) the elaboration and effective use of sets of processes and strategies with demonstrated power for producing planned changes in education:

(c) the development of a small number of persons who have a good understanding of the requirements for effective application of research and development to education and a command of interpersonal and other skills essential to good management of Rand Doperations:

(d) the preparation, largely through first-hand experience, of a considerable number of persons with the understandings and skills requisite to specialized aspects of R and D such as program de

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sign, product development, systems analysis, evaluation, installation of innovative systems or products, and maintenance of conditions for continuing adjustments and improvements; and

(e) the concentration of substantial staff and other resources for research and development in several organizations which are already making important contributions to the improvement of education.

3. Among additional measures which are required to obtain the full benefits from the application of research and development processes to education are-

(a) better provisions for national planning and management; (b) greater attention to the building of inter-agency relationships for the installation, evaluation, and continuing improvement of the products of research and development;

(c) commitment on a stable, long-term basis of resources essential to effective functioning of a number of strong organizations of proven capability and the establishment of additional organizations as required by unmet needs;

(d) the stepping up of provisions to increase understanding of educational research and development with special reference to how various educational operations may contribute to and share in the benefits; and

(e) improved provisions for the training of educational personnel for the several complementary roles required for productive research, development, and implementation.

If the premises set forth in the preceding outline are accepted, the following conclusions seem justified: First, the comparatively modest investment in educational research and development in the sixties is yielding good returns. Second, the capabilities developed, and their potential for future contributions to education, are more important than the products presently ready for use. Third, it is now possible to discern additional steps which hold the prospect of making educational research and development yield large and continuing gains for the improvement of education for all individuals in our society.

A LOOK BACKWARD

When the research and development operations, established under Federal grant in the sixties, began to show signs of developing power, I thought at last we may be approaching the point when we can incorporate into education sets of need-identifying, problem-solving, and error-rectifying processes which will enable us not only to choose more wisely among alternative strategies, technologies, and facilities for learning but, even more important, to feed back into the system the effects of operations so that both incremental and reconstructive changes may be made. My hopes were based on the belief that the new institutions for research and development would incorporate elements and processes lacking in earlier attempts to reform education, including those with which I was identified.

In the early decades of this century there were many creative thinkers and innovators in American education who influenced my thinking as a teacher and school principal. I tried out many ideas stimulated by reports of the Horace Mann-Lincoln School at Columbia, the Uni

versity of Chicago Laboratory schools, and pioneering school districts such as Winnetka, Illinois and Gary, Indiana. I discovered that innovation was enlivening both to me and to others involved as students, teachers, and parents; but I found also that the new solutions to teaching and learning often revealed deficiencies when the gloss of novelty wore off. I began to look without notable success for means of remedying the defects and building on the strengths that seemed to have the possibility of producing desired effects.

For a long time I have been haunted by linked concepts of life-long learning and environments perpetually responsive to the emerging needs for learning of individuals in human societies. Many people have based hopes for the attainment of these ideals on approaches as disparate as Rousseau's return to nature and Norbert Wiener's cybernetic or self-correcting system. Three of my predecessors as chairman of the Department of Education at the University of Chicago advocated well defined strategies of educational reform which they expounded with great vigor: John Dewey pinned his hopes largely on the elaboration and application of theory to be worked out and tested in laboratorylike school situations; Charles Hubbard Judd, true to his rigorous psychological orientation, believed that education could become a science growing in understanding and power through experimental research; and Ralph W. Tyler emphasized comprehensive approaches to the evaluation of changes in behavior and a curriculum systematically designed to achieve desired objectives. I began to look for means of tying these threads together.

In an article appearing in the Phi Delta Kappan, February 1970, I concluded that support for the desirable tendencies observed in the operations of the stronger centers and laboratories would accelerate the production of tested systems for the facilitation of learning and for the revitalization of educational operations. I went on to predict that under favorable conditions state education departments and thousands of colleges and school systems might become active partners in R and D operations by pinpointing poorly met needs, providing ideas for development, participating in experimental try-outs of prototypes and partially developed systems, promoting installation and use of products, and feeding back data for product refinement. And I concluded that "these new research and development organizations promise to supply essential ingredients for continuous improvement of education; and that their efforts, in concert with other agencies-old and new-can help to build mechanisms for need identification, problem solving, and institutional regeneration into every part of our educational enterprise." Subsequent events have strengthened my faith in that conclusion.

In the final sections of the report, I shall attempt to summarize my conclusions with respect to (1) persisting impediments to effective R and D operations in education, (2) steps toward increased productivity and power, and (3) present and prospective contributions to educational improvement.

PERSISTING IMPEDIMENTS

Deficiencies in national planning, management, support, and evaluation are a continuing impediment to realization of the full potential of educational R and D. These shortcomings spring largely from the