Component-Based Research in Education: Emerging Ideas, Possibilities, and Next Steps

On November 15th - 17th 2023, Outlier Research & Evaluation at the Data Science Institute at the University of Chicago hosted a National Science Foundation-funded working meeting that focused on the needs and requirements of an infrastructure that could support component-based research (CBR). CBR is a paradigm that focuses on unpacking innovations into precisely described parts in order to identify the core features and processes that most contribute to desired outcomes. It calls for identifying innovation “components,” and for clearly specifying the contexts and conditions in which innovations operate, the innovation beneficiaries, and target outcomes. This report shares the ideas generated during this meeting.