Co-Principal Investigators: Pianta, Robert C.; Wyckoff, James

This training program prepared five postdoctoral fellows to conduct rigorous education research in topics related to effective teachers and teaching practices, early learning, and social and behavioral contexts for learning. The program was based at the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education in two interdisciplinary research centers—the Center for the Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) and the Center of Education Policy and Workforce Competitiveness (Ed Policy Works). Fellows were hired for 2 to 3 years each and worked with mentors on funded projects, which included exploration, development, efficacy, and effectiveness studies.

Training included four main components: (1) individualized work with a senior investigator, (2) experience learning and using rigorous methods and statistics, (3) immersion in a scientifically rigorous community of scholarship, and (4) mentored experiences in consultation with educational stakeholders (e.g., state/federal agencies, district policy-makers, and practitioner groups). The goal of these experiences was to provide fellows with a rich array of opportunities that honed their research expertise and exposed them to decision-making at the intersection of research, policy, and practice.

Postdoctoral Fellows

Ansari, Arya (ORCID)
Goble, Priscilla (ORCID)
Rosinger, Kelly
Sandilos, Lia (ORCID)
Waite, Anisah

As of 2020, Dr. Ansari was an assistant professor of human development and family science in the College of Education and Human Ecology and a faculty associate at the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy at The Ohio State University, Dr. Goble was an assistant professor of family and child development in the School of Family and Consumer Sciences at Texas State University, Dr. Rosinger was an assistant professor in the Department of Education Policy Studies and research associate in the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Penn State University, Dr. Sandilos was an assistant professor of psychological studies in education in the College of Education and Human Development at Temple University, and Dr. Waite was a continuous improvement coach with New Visions for Public Schools.

Related IES Projects: Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Training Program in Education Sciences (R305B060009), Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Research Training Program in Education Sciences (R305B100009), University of Virginia Education Science (VEST) Interdisciplinary Post-Doctoral Training Program (R305B170002), University of Virginia Education Science Training Program in English Language Learning (EL-VEST) (R305B210008)

Products and Publications

Book chapters

Ansari, A. and Crosnoe, R. (2018). The Transition into Kindergarten for English Language Learners. In A. Mashburn, J. LoCasale-Crouch, and K. Pears. (Eds.), In Welcome to Kindergarten! Describing, Explaining, and Promoting Children's Positive Transitions to School. Springer, Cham.

Fuller, B., Dauter, L., and Waite, A. (2016). New Roles for Teachers in Diverse Schools. D. Gitomer and C. Bell (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Teaching. Washington, DC: American Educational.

Pahlke, E., and Goble, P. (2015). Gender and Education. In J.D. Wright (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed., pp. 682–688). Cambridge, MA: Elsevier, Inc. doi:10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.92151-2

Rosinger, K.O., Taylor, B.J., and Slaughter, S. (2016). The Crème de la Crème: Stratification and Accumulative Advantage Within US Private Research Universities. In S. Slaughter and B.J. Taylor (Eds.), Higher Education, Stratification, and Workforce Development (pp. 81–101). Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer.

Slaughter, S., Taylor, B.J., and Rosinger, K.O. (2015). A Critical Reframing of Human Capital Theory in US Higher Education. In A.M. Martínez-Alemán, B. Pusser, and E.M. Bensimon (Eds.), Critical Approaches to the Study of Higher Education: Competitive Advantage (pp. 80–102). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Taylor, B.J., Rosinger, K.O., and Slaughter, S. (2016). Patents and University Strategies in The Prestige Economy. In S. Slaughter and B.J. Taylor (Eds.), Stratification, Privatization, and Employability of Higher Education in the US and EU: Competitive Advantage (pp. 103–123). Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer.

Journal article, monograph, or newsletter

Ansari, A. (2017). Multigrade Kindergarten Classrooms and Children's Academic Achievement, Executive Function, and Socioemotional Development. Infant and Child Development 26(6), e2036. doi: 10.1002/icd.2036 Full Text

Ansari, A. (2017). The Selection of Preschool for Immigrant and Native-Born Latino Families in the United States. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 41 (4), 149–160. Full Text

Ansari, A. (2018). The Persistence of Preschool Effects from Early Childhood Through Adolescence. Journal of Educational Psychology, 110(7), 952–973. Full Text

Ansari, A., and Gottfried, M. A. (2018). Early Childhood Educational Settings and School Absenteeism for Children With Disabilities. AERA Open, 4(2), 2332858418785576. Full Text

Ansari, A., and Gottfried, M. A. (2018). The Benefits of Center-Based Care and Full-Day Kindergarten for School Attendance in the Early Grades. Child & Youth Care Forum, 47(5), 701–724. Full Text

Ansari, A., and Pianta, R. C. (2018). Variation in the Long-Term Benefits of Child Care: The Role of Classroom Quality in Elementary School. Developmental Psychology, 54(10), 1854–1867. Full Text

Ansari, A., and Purtell, K. M. (2018). Absenteeism in Head Start and Children's Academic Learning. Child Development, 89(4), 1088–1098.doi: 10.1111/cdev.12800 Full Text

Ansari, A., and Purtell, K. M. (2018). Continuity and Changes in Classroom Age Composition and Achievement in Head Start. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 58, 86–95. Full Text

Ansari, A., and Purtell, K. M. (2018). School Absenteeism Through the Transition to Kindergarten. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR), 23(1–2), 24–38. ERIC

Ansari, A., and Purtell, K. M. (2018). What Happens Next? Delivering on the Promise of Preschool. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 45, 177–182. Full Text

Ansari, A., Pivnick, L. K., Gershoff, E. T., Crosnoe, R., & Orozco-Lapray, D. (2020). What Do Parents Want From Preschool? Perspectives of Low-Income Latino/a Immigrant Families. Early childhood research quarterly, 52(A), 38–48. Full Text

Downer, J. T., Goble, P., Myers, S. S., and Pianta, R. C. (2016). Teacher-Child Racial/Ethnic Match Within Pre-Kindergarten Classrooms and Children's Early School Adjustment. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 37, 26–38. Full text

Fuller, B., Waite, A., Miller, P., and Torres Irribarra, D. (2016). Explaining Teacher Turnover: School Cohesion and Intrinsic Motivation in Los Angeles. American Journal of Education, 122, 537–567. doi: 10.1086/687272.

Gershoff, E. T., Sattler, K., and Ansari, A. (2018). Strengthening Causal Estimates for Links Between Spanking and Children's Externalizing Behavior Problems. Psychological Science, 29(1), 110–120.

Goble, P., Eggum-Wilkens, N. D., Bryce, C. I., Foster, S. A., Hanish, L. D., Martin, C. L., and Fabes, R. A. (2017). The Transition from Preschool to First Grade: A Transactional Model of Development. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 49, 55–67. Full Text

Goble, P., Hanish, L. D., Martin, C.L., Eggum-Wilkens, N.D., Foster, S.A., and Fabes, R.A., (2016). Preschool Contexts and Teacher Interactions: Relations with School Readiness. Early education and development, 27(5), 623–641. Full text

Nathaniel, P., Sandilos, L. E., Pendergast, L., and Mankin, A. (2016). Teacher Stress, Teaching-Efficacy, and Job Satisfaction in Response to Test-Based Educational Accountability Policies. Learning and Individual Differences, 50, 308–317. Full text

Purtell, K. M., and Ansari, A. (2018). Classroom Age Composition and Preschoolers' School Readiness: The Implications of Classroom Quality and Teacher Qualifications. AERA Open, 4(1), 2332858418758300.

Rosinger, K. (2017). Federal Policy Efforts to Simplify College-Going: An Intervention in Community College Enrollment and Borrowing. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 671(1), 114–131. Full Text

Rosinger, K.O., Taylor, B.J., Coco, L., and Slaughter, S. (2016). Organizational Segmentation and the Prestige Economy: Deprofessionalization in High- and Low-Resource Departments. Journal of Higher Education, 87(1), 27–54.

Sandilos, L. E., and Rimm-Kaufman, S. E., and Cohen, J. J. (2016). Warmth and Demand: Exploring the Relation Between Students' Perceptions of the Classroom Environment and Student Achievement Growth. Child Development, 88(4), 1321–1337. Full text

Sandilos, L. E., Goble, P., Rimm-Kaufman, S.E., Pianta, R.C. (2018). Does Professional Development Reduce the Influence of Teacher Stress on Teacher-Child Interactions in Prekindergarten Classrooms? Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 42, 280–290. Full Text

Sandilos, L. E., Lewis, K., Komaroff, E., Hammer, C. S., Scarpino, S. E., Goldstein, B., Lopez, L., and Rodriguez, B. (2015). Analysis of Bilingual Children's Performance on the English and Spanish Versions of the Woodcock-Muñoz Language Survey-R (WMLS-R). Language Assessment Quarterly, 12(4), 386–408.

Sandilos, L.E., Cycyk, L.M., Hammer, C.S., Sawyer, B.E., Lopez, L.M., and Blair, C. (2015). Depression, Control, and Climate: An Examination of Factors Impacting Teaching Quality in Preschool Classrooms. Early Education and Development, 26(8): 1111–1127. doi:10.1080/10409289.2015.1027624

Sandilos, L.E., Wollersheim-Shervey, S., DiPerna, J.C., Lei, P., and Cheng, W. (2017). Structural Validity of CLASS K-3 in Primary Grades: Testing Alternative Models. School Psychology Quarterly. doi:10.1037/spq0000155 Full Text

Sawyer, B. E., Cycyk, L. M., Sandilos, L. E., and Hammer, C. S. (2016). 'So Many Books They Don't Even All Fit on the Bookshelf': An Examination of Low-Income Mothers' Home Literacy Practices, Beliefs and Influencing Factors. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 18(3), 338-372.1468798416667542 Full text

Sawyer, B. E., Hammer. C., S., Cycyk, L. M., Lopez, L., Blair, C., Sandilos, L., and Komaroff, E. (2016). Preschool Teachers' Language and Literacy Practices with Dual Language Learners. Bilingual Research Journal, 39, 35–49. Full text

Sawyer, B., Atkins-Burnett, S., Sandilos, L., Scheffner Hammer, C., Lopez, L., and Blair, C. (2017). Variations in Classroom Language Environments of Preschool Children Who Are Low Income and Linguistically Diverse. Early Education and Development, 29(3), 398-416. Full Text

Wollersheim Shervey, S., Sandilos, L. E., DiPerna, J. C., and Lei, P. W. (2017). Social Validity of the Social Skills Improvement System—Classwide Intervention Program (SSIS-CIP) in the Primary Grades. School Psychology Quarterly, 32(3), 414.Full text