Science and Students with Learning and Behavioral Problems.

Every day millions of us bet our lives on the fundamental belief that physicists and engineers understand the laws of fluid dynamics sufficiently to create safe aircraft designs. We also believe that pilots know how to fly aircraft in ways that do not exceed the limits of this understanding. Similarly, we believe that medical scientists sufficiently understand the effects of vaccines on disease agents and that doctors know when and when not to use specific drugs to help patients with specific diseases. How can these professions be so effective? Have they always been this effective? How did they become so effective? And is it reasonable to expect that education and special education intervention researchers can develop strategies and technologies equally as impressive? The foundation of these practices, mostly taken for granted by the public, is their basis in science. Practitioners of these disciplines understand most of the laws and principles that underlie the effective actions of their practices (Johnston, 1996; Moxley, 1989). These understandings have emerged through a history of research and accumulated empirical evidence. It is this evidence that explains their effectiveness. Because air travel and medical care are so commonplace today, it may be difficult to appreciate their effectiveness. A hundred years ago, there was no air travel, and medical treatments were negotiated between physician and patient in the absence of a body of relevant research findings: ". . . a physician would list possible treatments, none of which was particularly efficacious, and the patient would select one. Such a system was incredibly inefficient in terms of developing a knowledge base and also lacked necessary safeguards for quality assurance" (Carnine, 1995; p. 369). Improving Standards of Practice The effectiveness of medicine and engineering has advanced due to improving standards of practice based primarily on new findings from empirical research and secondarily on the craft knowledge of their practice. Evidencebased standards set norms for evaluating alternative practices and enabled the determination of best practice. Best practices in these disciplines are continually shaped by additional research findings and discoveries; many of these are increasingly a product of collaborations between disciplines seeking to solve important common problems. The "jumping together" of facts and fact-based theory across disciplines, termed consilience, creates a "common groundwork of explanation" (Wilson, 1998, p.53). Thus, new hybrid fields such as molecular genetics and chemical physics have emerged in recent years. Discussing advances in understanding of the human genome, Sagan (1997) evoked consilience when stating that "the most significant aspect of the DNA story is that the fundamental processes of life now seem fully understandable in terms of physics and chemistry" (p. 20). Current best practices are also shaped by the actions of professional organizations, government agencies, and consumer groups who value them (e.g., Walker et al., 1998). Professional organizations in medicine and engineering state up front that their practices are based in research evidence and that, in terms of professional certification requirements and product development procedures, they are subject to revision in the face of new evidence (Carnine, 1995). Federal agencies (e.g., Food and Drug Administration, Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration) regulate the activities of these professions, license their professionals, and provide quality assurance to the public. Independent interest groups (e.g., American Cancer Society, American Automobile Association) provide consumer education and information and even promote and fund research. Litigation and malpractice law provide a legal means of influencing the effectiveness of practice. In education, decisions about standards of accepted practice are much less often informed by research evidence, particularly evidence based in students' learning or behavior change (Greenwood & Maheady, 1997; Viadero, 1994). …