To Know Is Not Enough

Abstract

In this 2012 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Presidential Address, the author considers this year’s conference theme—how to take what we know from research and put it to effective (policy and practice) use. The essay challenges members individually and collectively to improve the connection. She reflects on the history of AERA as an organization, why many seminal research studies fail to get relevant uptake, several models that are instructive in considering the translation process, and comments on several of the papers commissioned by AERA, in advance of the 2012 meeting, which also address different aspects of the translation challenge. The author highlights her own model of change, which she refers to as the Model of Generative Change, and explains the stages or phases of generativity that can be experienced in the research lives of education researchers.