Empirical Education offers a variety of study designs catered to the publisher's research needs. To find out more about our sophisticated research designs click on the offerings below.
Types of Research Studies
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Full Scale Research Studies
Empirical Education has expertise in designing, recruiting for, collecting data for, analyzing, and reported 20 randomized control trials (RCTs). Among these experiments are school-level RCTs, including our 82-school evaluation of Alabama's STEM initiative, conducted in two phases over four years. We have also conducted RCTs using grade-level teams, such as our multi-site (California and Mississippi) study of a secondary literacy program.
Many of our studies make use of comparisons where the implementation of a program has already begun or where the research sponsor has no control over planning for conditions such as a phased roll-out. Here we employ standard econometric methods such as difference-in-differences and quasi-experimental (QE) designs from the education tradition. Where appropriate, these studies estimate moderator effects. Our studies may use student, teacher, and/or school-level data.
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District Data Study
One of Empirical Education's newest research products assists vendors in conducting a District Data Study, or quantitative case study, using historical data from schools and districts currently engaged in a specific educational program. The data studies result in concise reports on measurable behavioral and academic outcomes using appropriate statistical analyses of customer data from implementation of the education product or program.
District Data Study is designed on efficient procedures and engineering infrastructure that can be applied to individual districts already piloting a program or veteran customers with longstanding implementation.
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Partnering on Proposal Development
Empirical Education partners with publishers and their school district clients to develop effective proposals. We serve as an efficient and rigorous independent evaluator and have extensive experience with research designs that meet program evaluation requirements of federal programs.
Sample Reports
Our research reports address a range of different research needs. Get an overview of our different reports by visiting our sample reports page. If you are not sure whether our research design can be of value to you please, contact Joe Townsend and find out how Empirical can help you.
SIIA Guidelines
The SIIA Guidelines, authored by Empirical's CEO Denis Newman, are intended for publishers and developers of educational technologies and primarily seek to provide a standard of best practices for conducting and reporting evaluation studies of educational technologies.The guidelines will be available to SIIA members on the SIIA website. Non-members will be able to puchase the guidelines from Selling to Schools.
Publishers We Have Worked With
- Apex
Math and Science (Apex Learning), High School - Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
Special Development Programs (Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instructions), Across School District - Carnegie Learning
Pre-Algebra (Carnegie Learning's Bridge to Algebra), Middle School Algebra )Carnegie Learning's Cognitive Tutor, High School - Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
English Language Learning (Harcourt Achieve's On Our Way To English), Elementary School - McGraw-Hill
Reading remediation (McGraw-Hill Treasures), Middle School - PCI Education
Reading—Special Education (PCI's Level One Reading Program), Elementary School - Pearson Education
Science (Scott Foresman Science), Elementary School - Peoples Publishing Group
English Language Arts (PPG's Measuring Up), Elementary - Scholastic
Reading remediation(Scholastic's Read 180), High School - School Specialty (Frey Scientific)
Science (Frey Scientific's Premier Science), Middle School - Texas Instruments
Algebra & Geometry (Texas Instruments' TI Navigator system), High School - Wireless Generation
Reading Intervention (Literacy Bursts), Elementary School
