The National Behavior Research Coordination Center: Coordinating Research and Implementation of Evidence-Based School Interventions for Children With Serious Behavior Problems

In implementing its Behavior Research Initiative, the U.S. Department of Education funded four Behavior Research Centers, each to test the efficacy of a separate intervention to improve the behavior of elementary school students with or at risk for serious behavior problems. The initiative also established the National Behavior Research Coordination Center to conduct a cross-site evaluation of the four behavior interventions. The authors describe how the Department of Education's structuring of the initiative helped avoid many of the shortcomings of earlier federal cross-site demonstration programs and highlight the contributions a research coordination center can make to the quality of research conducted and to the knowledge produced across individual demonstrations.