Doing Research That Makes a Difference

Abstract

This paper describes the "practitioner-as-researcher" model of research, an alternative methodology that is intended to bring about institutional change. We developed this approach through the Diversity Scorecard project in which we work with teams of practitioners to examine institutional data disaggregated by ethnicity in order to identify inequities in educational outcomes. The practitioners, themselves, conduct the research on their own campuses to discover areas of inequities. This, in turn, impacts their practices and motivation to bring about systemic institutional change.