Below are recently published works. If you are unable to access any of my work, please email me at sandova [at] clemson [dot] edu.
Sandoval, C., Neri, R. C. & Boas, E. M. (2026). Conceptualizing axiological work and axiological rigor in continuous improvement in education. Journal of Educational Change. Advance online publication. | Link
In this article, Erica Boas, Rebecca Neri, and I make sense of the equity problem in continuous improvement, where most CI work that focuses on equity centers reducing disparities in dominant outcomes—standardized proficiency metrics, attendance, and other student outcomes that come to shape the U.S. accountability systems. We contrast these aims with more expansive ones, rooted in collective thriving, socio-ecological well-being, and transformative agency. We argue that CI can be better oriented towards these more expansive aims. To do so, we conceptualize axiological work, or the work of establishing and sustaining the core ethics and values of improvement work. Our paper argues that CI projects are always engaged in axiological work—all CI work is value-laden, whether that work is made explicit or not. We think making visible axiological work—often hidden and taken-for-granted—can help CI projects become more intentional about the kinds of outcomes to which they aspire.
Yurkofsky, M. M., & Sandoval, C. (2026). Research designs for continuous improvement in education. In A. L. Goodwin, A. Hargreaves, V. Showunmi, C. Stone-Johnson, & J. Weiner (Eds.), Third International Handbook of Educational Change (pp. 1–23). Springer Nature Switzerland. | Link
Over the past 15 years, the body of research around continuous improvement in education has grown. Max Yurkofsky and I survey this body of work to understand the research designs the field uses to generate insight into and from continuous improvement. Our conclusion: While there is a plethora of scholarship that examines research on continuous improvement—where researchers study the dynamics of improvement efforts from the outside—there is a dearth of scholarship that we call continuous improvement research, where the tools, methods, and processes of improvement are exploited for learning and insight.
Sandoval, C. (2026). Problems of practice and practicing problems: Examining problem work in educational improvement. American Educational Research Journal, 0(0). | Link
Solving problems is at the core of research-practice partnerships and educational improvement efforts, and “problems of practice” are their animating artifacts. But “problems of practice” are typically described as an object that is established at the beginning of a partnership or improvement effort, with little attention to what happens to this problem as the work unfolds.
This paper gets inside what happens to “problems of practice” long after such a problem has been identified, how the problem continues to shape improvement work, and the conditions under which “problems of practice” lead to powerful, engaging problem solving.
Sandoval, C., & Neri, R. C. (2024). Toward a continuous improvement for justice. Frontiers in Education, 9. | Link
In this exploratory paper, my colleague and I conceptualize what it means to center educational justice in continuous improvement. Drawing on critical scholarship in the learning sciences, we draw a distinction between equity and justice, where equity is concerned with reducing disparities in what we call dominant outcomes—e.g., standardized test scores, attendance—and justice is concerned with affirming the dignity of minoritized learners. We illustrate these distinctions and aim to push the field of continuous improvement to take up more critical stances by examining a prominent case in improvement science.