Table 1 Summary of framework terminology with examples

Scholarly teaching

The application of scientific knowledge about teaching and learning to pedagogical practice (Richlin 2001)

Increased use of low-stakes or no-stakes practice testing in the classroom (as recommended by Dunlosky et al. 2013)

Science of learning

Research producing basic theoretical insights and fundamental knowledge about learning principles, processes, and constraints (NSF n.d.)

Changes to neural oscillations can improve multi-tasking performance (Hsu et al. 2017)

Basic cognitive science

Research that generates causal models to explain a phenomenon of interest (Sussman et al. 2006)

Repetition improves performance in visual and cross-modal, but not auditory, recognition tasks (Amir Kassim et al. 2018)

Efficacy research

Research to determine whether an intervention improves outcomes in a tightly controlled setting (Flay 1986)

Benefits from retrieval practice are greater for students with lower working memory capacity (Agarwal et al. 2017)

Practice-based effectiveness research

Research to determine whether an intervention improves outcomes in a real-world context

Classroom-based programs of retrieval practice reduce middle school and high school students’ test anxiety (Agarwal et al. 2014)

Scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL)

Research designed to understand how teaching (beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, and values) can maximize learning (Potter and Kustra 2011)

Low performers respond positively to specific and general teacher feedback, while high performers have lower performance following specific, but not general, feedback (Baranczyk and Best 2020)

Discipline-based educational research

Discipline-specific scholarship of teaching and learning

Final exam scores for students in introductory physics courses can be predicted by math SAT (or ACT) scores and concept inventories (Salehi et al. 2019)

Systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and guidelines

Comprehensive summaries that synthesize a body of literature to make recommendations for practice

For researchers: Studies controlling for text difficulty and instructor variance are necessary for examining the effects of open versus traditional textbook us on students’ course performance (Griggs and Jackson 2017)

For instructors: Specific advice for using evidence-based practices, such as retrieval practice and spacing, to improve teaching (Agarwal and Bain 2019)

Implementation science

Research that seeks to understand the processes and factors that are associated with successful integration of evidence-based interventions within a particular setting (Rabin and Brownson 2017)

Students who identify as both first-generation and underrepresented minority students benefit from a writing utility value intervention (Harackiewicz et al. 2016)

The achieved relative strength of the utility value intervention is less in classroom studies than in laboratory ones, but still significant (Hulleman and Cordray 2009)