In a recent blog post, Cindy described many of the problems with classroom research. This type of research is messy and is often therefore too large of a risk for professors whose careers depend on successful research outcomes. However, there has been some excellent classroom research conducted and today we want to point you in the direction of a few selected researchers who have taken on this challenge. This digest is a bit different from our normal selection of articles, but we hope you will find it useful as a jumping off point for finding great examples of research conducted in classrooms.

NOTE: This is far from an exhaustive list. These are just a few great examples, and there are many more! In an effort to point towards other researchers doing controlled classroom research, we plan to continue putting out digests like this one with classroom research labs, 5 at a time!

1) Pooja Agarwal @PoojaAgarwal of retrievalpractice.org

Pooja Agarwal has conducted numerous classroom studies with the help of several researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and in collaboration with teachers such as Patrice Bain @PatriceBain1. Much of this work has been done on retrieval practice in middle school classrooms demonstrating the long-term retention benefits of testing.

2) Mark McDaniel at Washington University in St. Louis

Mark McDaniel opened the Center for Integrated Research on Cognition, Learning, and Education to develop more partnerships with teachers and researchers. CIRCLE is all about classroom research guided by psychologists to improve education, particularly within the university setting.

3) Shana Carpenter at Iowa State University

Shana Carpenter uses many different types of educationally relevant materials within the laboratory, but also examines retrieval practice within the classroom.

4) Richard Mayer at the University of California – Santa Barbara

Richard Mayer is well known for his work on learning from multimedia presentations. His work involves new and interesting materials and he has used many of these materials within the classroom to examine the effects on retention.

5) Peter Verkoeijen @JVerkoeijen at Erasmus University

Peter Verkoeijen has worked with primary school children to examine the effects of spacing and retrieval practice on vocabulary learning. He has conducted many studies within the classroom.

Every Sunday, we pick a theme and provide a curated list of links. If you have a theme suggestion, please don’t hesitate to contact us! Occasionally we publish a guest digest, and If you'd like to propose a guest digest click here. Our 5 most recent digests can be found here:

Weekly Digest #76: YouTube Channels to Help you Study

Weekly Digest #77: Cell Phones in the Classroom

Weekly Digest #78: How to Motivate Children to Learn

Weekly Digest #79: Resources for Teaching about Racism and Bias, Part 1

Weekly Digest #80: Resources for Teaching about Racism and Bias, Part 2