ABSTRACT
The heated exchanges between those who accept and reject the proposition that randomized controlled trials are the “gold standard” for scientific research in education have turned primarily on methodological virtues. The push to establish randomized controlled trials as the method of choice for education research, however, has also been animated and driven by the position that “good” research-inquiry and/or findings-informs, influences, or directly guides educational policy and practice. This preoccupation with the utility of education research has not been thoughtfully examined by most of those engaged in the current methodological debates: claims about rigor and quality are conflated with issues of research use in ways largely unacknowledged.
