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New Directions for Research Discussed at Institute of Education Sciences Conference
June 9, 2009
The Fourth Annual Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Research Conference was convened June 7 - 9 with an air of anticipation about new directions, as John Q. Easton began his term as director. Formerly executive director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research, he brings a new perspective to IES. While Dr. Easton is quoted in Education Week as saying he will retain the rigor that IES has made a priority, the Consortium’s work points to the importance of building local capacity for research to support reform. In a paper published online, he and his colleagues provide a clear and detailed rationale for their approach that includes the need for combining high quality research with the ability to cut through technical details to communicate both good and bad news to local decision makers.
Three Empirical Education staff members furthered this agenda of building capacity for local school and district evaluations in poster presentations at the conference. Dr. Robert Smith, the company’s vice president of engineering, outlined the company’s progress on MeasureResults™, a web-based evaluation solution for schools and districts. (Funding for the development of MeasureResults™ is from an IES Small Business Innovation Research grant.)
Dr. Denis Newman, the company’s president, and Andrew P. Jaciw, director of experimental design and analysis, presented their findings on the process of developing low cost, timely, and locally relevant experiments (funded by an IES research grant). Development efforts on MeasureResults continue through the Empirical Education team’s application of the knowledge gained from this project entitled “Low Cost Experiments to Support Local School District Decisions.” This project guides the team in developing decision makers’ understanding of, and building local capacity for, conducting evaluation research.
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Presentation at the Society for Research in Educational Effectiveness (SREE) Explores Methods for Studying Achievement Gaps
March 1, 2009
Frequently in Empirical Education’s experimental evaluations for school districts, the question of local concern is an achievement gap identified between two student groups. The analysis of these experiments also often finds significant differences between these subgroups in how effective the intervention was (that is, if it increased or decreased the gap) while not finding a significant overall difference. In his 2005 book, Howard Bloom suggested why there may be more statistical power to detect subgroup differences than to detect the average effect. The exploration presented at SREE, which was held in Washington March 1-3, examined the statistical characteristics of eight experiments conducted over the last three years to find out whether a critical assumption of Bloom’s approach held. His assumption is that the average performance gap does not vary across the units that are randomized. The work, led by Andrew P. Jaciw, Empirical Education’s Director of Experimental Design and Analysis, found that the assumption held. This finding is important because it suggests that local experiments focusing on achievement gaps may be less expensive than experiments addressing only the overall average effect of an intervention. (Click here for a copy of the poster and handout.)
Bloom, H. S., (2005). Randomizing groups to evaluate place-based programs. In H. S. Bloom (Ed). Learning More From Social Experiments. New York, NY: Sage.
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Methods for Local Experimental Evaluation of STEM Initiatives Presented to State Legislators
February 1, 2009
The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) presented a seminar for education committee chairs January 9-11 in Huntsville, Alabama, home of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The topic was “Linking Research and Policy to Improve Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Education.” Empirical Education‘s president, Denis Newman, presented the company‘s research on the Alabama Math Science and Technology Initiative, an 80-school randomized experiment being conducted as part of its contract with the Regional Education Laboratory for the Southeast. The presentation also drew on findings from experiments the company has conducted to evaluate STEM initiatives elsewhere in the country to illustrate the importance of local research goals and characteristics in evaluation design. The seminar was part of a series on research funded by the Institute of Education Sciences. (Click here for a copy of the presentation.)
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New MeasureResults™ Webpage
January 1, 2009
Empirical Education clients and partners can now keep track of the latest MeasureResults developments on our new webpage: www.empiricaleducation.com/
measureresults.php. The webpage features video clips that explain how MeasureResults’ online interface can be used to set up and conduct school level studies, as well as details about the design and development of program features. Updates and announcements will be posted on a regular basis. In addition to serving our existing MeasureResults subscribers, Empirical Education is currently developing a custom-designed MeasureResults tool for use in more than ten school districts for a high-school math effectiveness study. For more information about MeasureResults, refer to the new MeasureResults webpage. -
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