Recommendation 1. In federal agencies that support education research, the criteria by which peer reviewers rate proposals should be clearly delineated, and the meaning of different score levels on each scale should be defined and illustrated. Reviewers should be trained in the use of these scales. Defining, revisiting, and upholding standards of quality in the peer review process enhances the development of high-quality education research over time by facilitating reliable and valid ratings of proposals for funding and feedback to applicants.

Recommendation 2. Federal agencies that support education research should ensure that as a group, each peer review panel has the research experience and expertise to judge the theoretical and technical merits of the proposals it reviews. In addition, peer review panels should be composed so as to minimize conflicts of interest, to balance biases, and to promote the participation of people from a range of scholarly perspectives and traditionally underrepresented groups. The group of peer reviewers assembled to judge education research proposals should have the expertise to judge the content areas of the proposed work, the methods and analytic techniques proposed to address the research question, and the policy and practice contexts in which the work is situated. Agency staff should seek to eliminate conflicts of interest among reviewers. However, because many of the best reviewers are likely to have some association with applicants, overly restrictive conflict of interest rules can dramatically shrink the pool of competent reviewers. Biases among peer reviewers need not be eliminated, but rather must be identified, discussed among the group, and balanced across panelists. Ensuring a breadth of perspectives in peer review panels promotes high-quality reviews over time by engaging different kinds of expertise and insights around a common set of proposals, issues, and evaluation criteria.

Recommendation 3. In research conducted in educational settings, investigators must not only select rigorous methods appropriate to the questions posed but also implement them in ways that meet the highest standards of evidence for those questions and methods. The choice of research design and method must be driven by the par-