The research approach used to develop this
guide is a combination of case study methodology
and benchmarking of "best practices."
used in businesses worldwide as they seek to
continuously improve their operations, benchmarking
has more recently been applied to education.
Benchmarking is a structured, efficient
process that targets key operations and identifies promising practices in relationship to traditional
practice, previous practice at the selected
sites (lessons learned), and local outcome data.
This methodology is further explained in a
background document34 that lays out the justification for identifying promising practices based
on four sources of rigor in the approach:
- Theory and research base;
- Expert review;
- Site evidence of effectiveness; and
- Systematic field research and cross-site analysis.
The steps of the research process were: defining
a study scope, seeking input from an advisory
group of experts to refine the scope and inform
site selection criteria, screening potential sites,
selecting sites to study, conducting site visits,
collecting and analyzing data to write case reports,
and writing a user-friendly guide.
