What Is a Knowledge Base, and Who Would Use It If We Had One?

The term knowledge base is a relatively new one enter into the pedagogical lexicon, but the idea that the results of a wide range of social scientific research can be used to inform educational policies and practices (Wang, Haertel, & Walberg, 1993a) is an old one. What else is research in education for? It is evident that, toward that end, the authors of Toward a Knowledge Base for School Learning have employed complex research techniques in an effort synthesize the mass of data that has accumulated-particularly in the 1980s-bearing on the variables that influence learning. But the era of school reform (Wang et al., 1993a) that we (and the authors) tend associate with the 1980s actually has a history going back about a century, and researchers are the heirs a legacy of assumptions about the relationship between scientific data and educational reform. While it would be an obvious exaggeration claim that there has been no evolution of or even challenge these assumptions over the years, there remains a kind of bedrock belief in the power of science provide at least guidelines, if not specific rules, for how teachers should conduct themselves in schools and classrooms.