Some Tasks and Competencies Frequently Required in Educational Research and Evaluation. Research, Evaluation and Development Paper Series No. 5.

In 1969, the American Educational Research Association (AERA) empaneled a Task Force on Research Training and charged it with (1) building a relevant knowledge base about training needs and problems and (2) developing procedures to attack these problems. During its two years of study, the Task Force carried out a series of three USOE-supported activities designed to identify specific skills and knowledge required in educational research and evaluation. The first activity included two steps. First, the Task Force drafted lists of skills they thought were necessary in conducting research and evaluation in education. Second, the lists of skills were "reality tested" through interviews with 60 employers and supervisors of research and evaluation personnel. The second activity was not strictly empirical in nature, although it used as input the results yielded by the interviews described above and depended on informal observation for the rest. In the third activity, a task analysis of research and evaluation activities in 13 agencies was conducted. These agencies included universities, research and development centers, private research agencies, regional educational laboratories, and public schools rated by the Task Force members as doing high quality work. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the results of these three previous Task Force efforts into a single list of competencies frequently needed in educational research and evaluation. (MV)