Program Announcement: Postdoctoral Research Training Program in the Education Sciences CFDA 84.305B

Program Officer:
Dr. Edward Metz
Edward.Metz@ed.gov
(202) 208-1983

Purpose

The Institute has established the Postdoctoral Research Training Program in the Education Sciences to increase the supply of scientists and researchers in education who are prepared to conduct rigorous evaluation studies, develop and evaluate new products and approaches that are grounded in a science of learning, design and validate tests and measures, and contribute to the advancement of knowledge and theory in education. The specific intent of this program is to prepare researchers to be able to conduct the type of research that the Institute funds, prepare competitive proposals that address relevant education topics, and meet the methodological requirements specified for the Institute's research grant competitions.

The Institute's research grant competitions are designed to produce research that contributes to the solution of education problems identified by education decision-makers and practitioners. These research grant programs target key student outcomes and the types of research questions posed by education decision-makers and practitioners¹. In early childhood, the primary outcomes of interest are school readiness and developmental outcomes for infants and toddlers with disabilities. From kindergarten through Grade 12, the core academic outcomes of reading, writing, mathematics, and science are the central outcomes of interest, as well as social and behavioral skills that support academic learning in school, and successful transitions to employment, independent living, and postsecondary education. At the postsecondary level, the Institute focuses on improving access to and completion of postsecondary education. Finally, for adults with low levels of education, the Institute supports research to improve the acquisition of basic reading, writing, and mathematics skills.

Background

A number of recent reports have described current education practice as not resting on a solid research base (Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, 2002; National Research Council 1999, 2000, 2002). Instead, policy and practice decisions are often guided by personal experience, folk wisdom, and ideology. Grounding education policy and practice in the United States on evidence will require transformation of both the research and practice fields. Practitioners will have to turn routinely to education research when making important decisions, and education researchers will have to produce research that is relevant to those decisions. To achieve this ambitious agenda, there is a need for a cadre of well-trained scientists capable of conducting high quality research that is relevant to practitioners and policy makers.

Many of the questions raised by practitioners and policy makers require answers to questions of what works in education for whom and under what circumstances. These are causal questions that are best answered by research using randomized controlled trials or well-designed quasi-experimental designs. Through its research grant programs, the Institute encourages research that addresses questions of what works, for whom, and under what circumstances by inviting applicants to submit proposals to carry out such projects under the Efficacy and Replication goal and the Scale-Up Evaluations goal in the Institute's research funding announcements.

Another category of questions raised by the practice community focuses on assessment; the standards and accountability movement has generated a ballooning demand for assessment research. Across its research grant programs, the Institute encourages the development and validation of assessments under the Measurement goal in the Institute's research funding announcements. Individuals with skills in psychometrics are needed throughout the education sector, from federal statistics agencies to state education agencies, from test developers to local school districts.

Another category of questions raised by the practice community focuses on assessment; the standards and accountability movement has generated a ballooning demand for assessment research. Across its research grant programs, the Institute encourages the development and validation of assessments under the Measurement goal in the Institute's research funding announcements. Individuals with skills in psychometrics are needed throughout the education sector, from federal statistics agencies to state education agencies, from test developers to local school districts.

Yet another category of problems raised by practitioners and policy makers is the need for a new generation of teaching materials and curricula that take advantage of expanding knowledge of how people learn, and that leverage new delivery mechanisms such as the Internet (National Research Council, 2000). Across its research grant programs, the Institute supports projects to develop new education interventions (e.g., curricula, instructional approaches, professional development training) under the Development goal in the Institute's research grant funding announcements. The conceptualization, development, implementation, and evaluation of new teaching methods will require scientists who are well trained in cognition, learning, motivation, classroom instruction, and teacher training, and who are prepared to conduct research — both development and evaluation studies — in complex, real-world education settings.

The needs of education policy and practice are served not only by research that directly addresses questions of what works but also by research that raises questions and generates hypotheses that can eventually lead to new applications or refinements of existing approaches (National Research Council, 2002). Hypothesis-generating research may rely on complex statistical methods that can tease apart potential causal influences in large datasets and can take advantage of many of the district or state longitudinal datasets that have been or are being developed. Hypothesis-generating research may also involve detailed observations, for example, of classroom instruction along with sophisticated quantitative analyses to determine the associations between specific instructional practices and child outcomes. Hypothesis-generating research may also utilize sophisticated meta-analyses to explore the characteristics of education practices or programs that are associated with the most positive outcomes, as well as identify potential moderators or mediators of those relationships. Across our research grant programs, these types of research efforts are supported under the Exploration goal in the Institute's research grant funding announcements.

Statistical training is also needed in the design and analysis of experimental and quasi-experimental studies, as well as survey and observational data. Although there are many doctoral training programs that focus on statistics, the application of this expertise to problems in education requires that students be grounded in education content. That, in turn, requires a concentration of statistically sophisticated students and faculty whose research projects are focused on education topics.

References

Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy. (2002, November). Rigorous evidence: The key to progress in education? Lessons from medicine, welfare and other fields. Proceedings of The Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy Forum, Washington, DC.

National Research Council. (1999). Improving student learning: A strategic plan for education research and its utilization. Committee on a Feasibility Study for a Strategic Education Research Program. Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

National Research Council. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience and school. Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning. J. Bransford, A. Brown, and R. Cocking (Eds.) Committee on Learning Research and Educational Practice. S. Donovan, J. Bransford, and J. Pellegrino (Eds.). Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences in Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

National Research Council (2002). Scientific research in education. Committee on Scientific Principles for Education Research. R.J. Shavelson and L. Towne (Eds.). Center for Education. Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.