Table 2 Summary of recommendations for getting started with implementation science

Instructors as scientist–educators

Promote a scientist–educator model for instructors to encourage scholarly teaching

Working knowledge of cognitive science and scientific literacy is essential for educators; role for cognitive scientists as consultants

Design pragmatic-controlled trials

Use random assignment and blinded procedures to test the effectiveness of interventions in real college classrooms with an emphasis on generalizability

Use-inspired cognitive scientists needed to identify essential components; role for cognitive scientists as consultants

Use a planning and evaluation framework

Before conducting research, use a planning and evaluation framework to highlight naturally occurring moderator variables to examine within the research design

If research has already been conducted, use a planning and evaluation framework to assess the extent to which the study design matched real-world settings

Cognitive scientists can collaborate with educators to identify potential moderators and design ways to measure them

Expand reporting of research

Systematically document issues related to exclusion/inclusion of settings (e.g., classrooms or universities), instructors, and students, reasons for exclusion/inclusion, and extended monitoring of the intervention after the project ends

Provides basic researchers, practice-based researchers, and scholarly instructors with shared terminology and standards, making research interpretable across settings and goals (e.g., were color-blind participants included?)