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Initiatives to evolve appropriate practice and build and disseminate an understanding of different issues in education—curricular, pedagogic, planning and management-related for example—are crucial to any long term reform process as well as for deepening the discourse in elementary education as a discipline. Research, therefore, assumes a position of importance, linking different strands of our work, such as supporting resource organisations, advocacy efforts, professionalising elementary education and building the capacity of government institutions mandated to conduct research, such as DIETs and SCERTs. The ICEE is also working to establish links between resource organisations and universities, both in India and internationally, to build sectoral research expertise. Some of the research projects supported by ICEE are as follows:

Research plays a catalytic role, both in terms of demonstration and innovation, as well as by deepening the existing discourse on different processes in education. Sectorally, research capacity needs to be built across voluntary and non-voluntary resource organisations, and government institutions mandated to conduct research (such as SCERTs and DIETs), in particular, through collaboration with academic institutions such as universities. The ICEE also directly supports research studies, some of which are introduced below, and is exploring housing such research directly, or in collaboration with leading academic institutions.

In systems of schooling, action research can, and is often mandated to be embedded in existing work and areas of expertise, such as curriculum, pedagogy and teacher training. At the same time, research that is to be of use to the sector from a reform perespective, must be contextual in the sense that it takes into account field-realities, both political and socio-cultural. And where mandated, it must also define clearly what is implied by 'quality' or 'good' education. The following is an indicative list of some areas in which ICEE supports, and is working to support research:

Studying institutional reform and change: Given that institutions such as the State Councils for Educational Research and Training (SCERTs), and District Institutes for Education and Training (DIETs), and Block and Cluster Resource Centres (BRCs and CRCs), and most importantly schools, occupy key positions in determining the process of education at the level of classrooms and schools, their functioning must be understood in detail. In particular, research should shed light on the processes by which these institutions undergo reform and are able to work more effectively. Such research would explore how the personnel working in these institutions perceive their role, how their capacities are linked to their effectiveness, and what strategies prove useful in improving their effectiveness. In addition, the process of policy formulation, and its execution and modification at the level of particular institutions would also be studied, again providing direction on the avenues for change and reform.
Evaluation and Assessment: Processes of evaluation and assessment are crucial to any system of education, fulfilling two key roles—they explain how well pupils are learning, and they help students learn better through feedback, explaining how standards can be improved. Teachers who are able to nuance their teaching in light of feedback from student assessment have been found to be more effective. Research would therefore play a role in establishing the roles and nature of useful assessment, though its existence alone is insufficient to bring about changes in assessment in many education systems of the world. Unfortunately, an undue focus on the measurability of what students have learnt rather than it’s substance often creates an unfavourable mix-up of means and ends of this learning, and the curriculum that shapes it.
Studying Classroom Processes: Another important theme of research that ICEE works to support, is studying issues based in classroom processes, such as how teachers conceive of their role(s), teaching and learning across different kinds of classrooms, children's contexts and their influence on the classroom.
Private and Public Schooling Systems: There is a relative scarcity of data and understanding about the exact manner in which teaching and learning takes place inside Indian schools, and particularly, how their existence as private or public (government) schools impacts this. This includes estimates of the number of private schools and their type, since many such schools are not registered. This issue gains added significance in the context of the ongoing debates about the extent to which the state should be involved in schooling at the elementary level at all, and whether there are qualitative benefits from changing the ownership and management of schools.

Research Projects supported by ICEE:

An essential outcome of elementary education is language learning, including the crucial abilities of a child to read and write. The foundational years vis-a-vis language learning are the early years of schooling, and during these years, children must become capable of reading with understanding, and writing, in order to continue their schooling and further education. The ICEE has supported a qualitative research jointly undertaken by Digantar and Dr. Caroline Dyer, a researcher at the University of Leeds, UK, to study the processes that determine how children learn, such as the manner in which teachers use textbooks, the implications for 'good practices', and how current literature and experts' views on the specific issue of literacy acquisition in languages such as Hindi, relate to the empirical findings of the research study.

The ICEE has supported a benchmarking study of students' learning across municipal schools across five states. This study is expected to help build a set of questions that are able to evaluate the extent to which a student understands a given concept, as opposed to her ability to simply recall information, and secondly, gain an accurate snapshot of children's learning across municipal schools in selected states.

Teachers play a crucial role in mediating and thereby determining children's learning in the school. This, in turn, depends on the teacher's physical presence in the classroom, his/her ability and interest in teaching, and their treatment of children. Yet, teachers' lives outside the school also play important roles in determining how they will behave as teachers. In particular, their existence as participants in political processes, particularly those connected to the education system, and/or electoral politics, can impact their role as teachers. Vidya Bhawan Society, in collaboration with Tara Beteille, a doctoral student from Stanford University, USA, has undertaken a quantitative research study to evaluate the political role of teachers, and how this impacts their work as teachers, particularly their absenteeism behaviour.