This contribution argues that educational research has (not) mastered the values needed for decision making and change. The main issue is the yawning gap between theory and practice in educational research exemplary in a professional field like lifelong learning. A variety of types of research is presented to show the differences of orientation, process, methodology and goal or focus. Next the issue of the existing gap between theory and practice is approached by con-trasting in an exemplary way two extreme types of research: the traditional empirical-analytical and the action research...