The mission of Inverness Research Inc. is to provide insight into the design, quality and effectiveness of educational improvement initiatives.

Inverness Research is an independent and national educational research organization with its headquarters located in Inverness, California -- a small town 50 miles north of San Francisco. Founded more than a decade ago, the firm is operated by Dr. Mark St. John. While Dr. St. John is the lead investigator on all studies, Inverness Research has a team of more than a dozen senior researchers around the nation who have the skills, experience and knowledge appropriate to each project the group undertakes.

The work of Inverness Research Inc. primarily involves the study of reform initiatives taking place at the K-12 grade levels, but also includes higher education and teacher education. The research designs used by Inverness Research are multi-faceted and rely on data gained from participant observation, in-depth interviews, focus groups, surveys, and document reviews. By studying the congruence of project theory and field realities, Inverness Research helps projects assess the quality and efficacy of their efforts, and helps funders better understand the design of their initiatives and the value of their investments.

Inverness Research studies often involve one or more of the following functions:

• Documenting the rationale and activities of specific projects so that they are able to portray the nature of their work to external audiences.
• Providing formative feedback and technical assistance to projects so that they can improve the quality and efficacy of their work.
• Conducting summative evaluations so that both projects and funders can asses the contributions the project work is making to educational improvement.
• Conducting research within the context of the project work in order to develop more general knowledge about the educational improvement process.

Projects vary in their scale and cover a wide range of activities, including:

• Congressionally-mandated studies of large national programs. Recent clients include the National Science Foundation (Systemic Initiatives) and the U.S. Department of Education (National Writing Project).
• Long term evaluations of state-level initiatives. Recent clients include the University of California Office of the President (The California Subject Matter Projects); the New York State Department of Education (New York State Systemic Initiative) and the Texas Department of Education (The Texas Higher Education Eisenhower Program).
• Evaluation of and technical assistance to national and local projects which focus on professional development, curricular innovation, teacher preparation, and school reform.
• Prospective analyses of promising opportunities for funding within education for private and public foundations (e.g., The Pew Charitable Trusts and The National Science Foundation).

Our Mission Statement in PDF format