William T. Grant Publishes "How Social Science Research Can Improve Youth Outcomes In The Real World"
Bringing Rigor to Relevant Questions
Social scientists too often view the concepts of relevance and rigor as competing. Through this lens, however, a rich spectrum of research methods, approaches, and purposes is reduced to monochrome binaries: either the work builds theory or practical knowledge; either it is for academics or for users in policy and practice; either it is scientific or practical. But for researchers in the social sciences to make greater contributions to the economic and social well-being of our nation, we need to complicate these binaries.
Put simply, the dichotomy of rigor versus relevance is false. There is no inevitable trade-off between producing rigorous research and producing research with relevance for the real world. Researchers who want their work to matter in policy and practice should begin by identifying the questions of greatest relevance and then bring the highest standards of theoretical and methodological rigor to those questions. In this essay, we argue for the critical need to reach for both rigor and relevance in research to improve youth outcomes, and we urge universities and professional associations to create structures and incentives to support theoretically and methodologically rigorous research that addresses pressing policy and practice issues. . .