Research secondary implementations
Research‐based instructional strategies are often developed in one setting by a few individuals and
then disseminated as if it will be easy for others in a different setting to incorporate them. The
uniqueness of students, instructors and structures at each location make secondary implementations
non‐trivial. It is common for curriculum to be produced and disseminated that has not been tested in
contexts beyond the environment in which it was developed. Most research‐based curricula has been
developed at research universities or elite liberal arts colleges. Conventional wisdom and available
evidence suggest that these curricula do not always transfer directly to other environments [39‐43]. For
example, a ten‐year study of the secondary implementation of the instructional strategy of Interactive
Lecture Demonstrations found that student learning gains were “nowhere near” those claimed by the
developers [42]. In order for dissemination to be successful we suggest that curriculum development
efforts test and refine curriculum in environments fundamentally different from the development site;
make explicit what aspects of the curriculum will transfer and under what conditions the transfer will be
successful; make recommendations for modifications in different contexts, for example, how the
curriculum could be modified for different sized classes, or for schools with less prepared students; and
articulate why some aspects transfer better than others to guide instructors in their modifications.
Understanding the whys behind transfer issues is also essential for building a general model to guide
future development projects.