Schools now face a sea of “evidence”—supposedly validated products, research findings, and test, demographic, and teacher-generated data—that leaders must use. How have recent reforms to educational doctorate (EdD) programs addressed these demands? Case studies of four exemplary EdD programs illustrate how the better ones help graduates learn to use evidence. These programs have well-developed strategies for teaching students to find, assess, and conduct practical research. While they provide opportunities for students to share their work with users, they rarely provide the intellectual tools and frameworks to think about putting different kinds of evidence into practice, even in leadership courses.

This paper is a preliminary exploration of how doctoral study can increase educational leaders’ capacity to use evidence. Our mixed methods study uses interviews and surveys of graduates from four EdD programs. Methods training linked to students’ work and social capital development among students and with faculty both influenced graduates, use of evidence. We expected to find distinct uses of research (e.g., to make decisions, to persuade others). While we did, leaders often combined such uses in specific cases. We conclude with suggestions for further research on how professional education influences educational leaders’ use of evidence.

This paper explores how redesigned Education Doctorate (EdD) programs in educational leadership can serve as a lever for strengthening the use of research evidence (URE) in schools and districts. Drawing on the COM-B framework, we conceptualize a theory of action that links EdD program design to leaders’ capabilities, motivations, and behaviors in applying research to educational improvement. We identify key dimensions of leadership preparation that align with well-documented URE practices. Finally, we discuss how these insights can inform doctoral programs as well as in-service professional learning and suggest the need for additional empirical work on these relationships and a deeper understanding of how local contexts shape the effectiveness of leadership preparation in supporting research-informed decision-making.

One goal of the education doctorate is to prepare educational leaders who can use research-based evidence to solve complex problems related to education and improve lives. We recently completed a mixed methods study of four EdD programs that showed the kinds of experiences that encourage their graduates to use evidence. This paper uses qualitative data from the study to describe in more detail the strategies these programs used to promote evidence use. These strategies helped students develop skills in finding, assessing, and doing research; applying research; and working with others to use research. They ranged in size from the kinds of in-class activities professors used to help students collectively process what they were learning to the coordinated set of assignments spread across three years to help students turn a work-related issue into a research problem while designing and conducting their capstone doctoral project.