• Education and Special Education Research Programs
  Across its education and special education research programs, the Institute has established long-term programs of research that focus on outcomes that differ by periods of education. In the infancy and preschool period, the outcomes of interest are those that enhance readiness for schooling (e.g., language skills) and developmental outcomes for infants and toddlers with disabilities. In kindergarten through 12th grade, the core academic outcomes of reading and writing (including reading and writing in the disciplines), mathematics, and science are emphasized, as well as the behaviors and social skills that support learning in school and successful transitions to employment, independent living, and post-secondary education. At the post-secondary level, the focus is on enrollment in and completion of programs that prepare students for successful careers and lives. The same outcomes are emphasized for students with disabilities across each of these periods, and include the functional outcomes that improve educational and transitional results. The acquisition of basic skills by adults with low levels of education is also a priority.

  In conducting research on academic outcomes, the Institute concentrates on conditions within the control of the education system, with the aim of identifying, developing, and validating effective education programs, practices, policies, and approaches as well as understanding the factors that influence variation in their effectiveness such as implementation. Conditions that are of highest priority to the Institute are in the areas of curriculum, instruction, assessment (including the identification of students with disabilities), the quality of the education workforce, and the systems and policies that affect these conditions and their interrelationships (for example, accountability systems, delivery mechanisms including technology, and policies that support the ability of parents to improve educational results for their children through such means as choice of education services and provision of school-related learning opportunities in the home).

  The Institute's 14 long-term education research programs are:

  • Middle and High School Reform
  • Interventions for Struggling Adolescent and Adult Readers and Writers
  • English Language Learners
  • Postsecondary Education
  • Education Technology
  • Early Childhood Programs and Policies
  • Reading and Writing
  • Mathematics and Science Education
  • Cognition and Student Learning
  • Teacher Quality–Reading and Writing
  • Teacher Quality — Mathematics and Science Education
  • Social and Behavioral Context for Academic Learning
  • Education Leadership
  • Education Policy, Finance, and Systems

  The Institute's 10 long-term special education research programs are:

  • Cognition and Student Learning in Special Education
  • Teacher Quality
  • Related Services
  • Special Education Policy, Finance, and Systems
  • Autism Spectrum Disorders
  • Early Intervention and Early Childhood Special Education
  • Reading, Writing, and Language Development
  • Mathematics and Science Education
  • Social and Behavioral Outcomes to Support Learning
  • Transition Outcomes for Special Education Secondary Students

  Across these research programs, the Institute supports projects to: (a) explore relations among variables in order to identify malleable factors predictive of achievement and potentially amenable to intervention, practices that are associated with student outcomes, or factors and conditions that may mediate or moderate the relations between student outcomes and these programs and practices; (b) develop programs, practices, and policies that are theoretically and empirically based; (c) evaluate the efficacy of fully developed programs, practices, and policies; (d) evaluate the impact of programs, practices, and policies implemented at scale; and (e) develop and validate new measurement systems and tools or validate existing measurement instruments.

• Research Training Programs
  A number of recent reports have described current education practice as not resting on a solid research base. 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.

  The Institute has established its predoctoral and postdoctoral research training programs 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, and design and validate tests and measures. The specific intent of these programs is to prepare researchers who are able to prepare competitive proposals that address relevant education topics (e.g., reading, mathematics, behaviors that support learning in school, teacher quality, education policies) and meet the methodological requirements specified for the Institute's research grant competitions.

  The Institute's research training grant programs are:

  • Postdoctoral Research Training Program in the Education Sciences
  • Postdoctoral Research Training Program in Special Education
  • Predoctoral Interdisciplinary Research Training Programs in the Education Sciences
  
  
• Statistical and Research Methodology in Education
  The mission of the Institute, broadly speaking, is to provide rigorous evidence on which to ground education practice and policy and to encourage its use. Critical to achieving this mission is providing education scientists with the tools they need to conduct rigorous applied research. To that end, Institute provides support through the Statistical and Research Methodology grant program to develop new approaches, to extend and improve existing methods and to create other tools that would enhance the ability of researchers to conduct the types of research that the Institute funds.
• Evaluation of State and Local Education Programs and Policies
  The Institute recognizes that evidence-based answers for all of the decisions that education decision-makers and practitioners must make every day do not yet exist. Furthermore, education leaders cannot always wait for scientists to provide answers. One solution for this dilemma is for the education system to integrate rigorous research and evaluation into the core of its activities. The Institute believes that the education system needs to be at the forefront of a learning society—a society that plans and invests in learning how to improve its education programs by turning to rigorous evidence when it is available, and by insisting that when we cannot wait for evidence of efficacy that the program or policy we decide to implement be evaluated as part of the implementation.

  The Institute believes that substantial improvements in student outcomes can be achieved if state and local education agencies rigorously evaluate their education programs and policies. Through the Evaluation of State and Local Education Programs and Policies research program, the Institute provides support for rigorous evaluations of state or local education programs or policies that are implemented by State or local education agencies.

• National Research and Development Centers and Special Education Research and Development Centers
  The Institute supports research and development centers (Centers) that are intended to contribute significantly to the solution of education problems in the United States by engaging in research, development, evaluation, and national leadership activities aimed at improving the education system, and ultimately, student achievement. Each research and development center conducts a focused program of research in its topic area. In addition, each Center works cooperatively with the Institute to conduct supplemental research within its broad topic area and provide national leadership in advancing evidence-based practice and policy within its topic area. Competitions for new Centers are held on an irregular basis. The Institute posts notices of competitions for new Centers in the Federal Register. Interested applicants are also encouraged to subscribe to IES Newsflash to receive information about future competitions.
• Reading for Understanding Research Initiative
  Although the nation has invested billions of dollars in teaching children to read, many American students continue to struggle in reading. The latest data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that 1 out of 3 fourth-graders and 1 out of 4 eighth-graders cannot read at the basic level. That is, when reading grade appropriate material, these students do not understand what they read. It is difficult to imagine that students who cannot understand what they read will be successful in school or gain the skills necessary to succeed in the 21st century workforce.

  The Institute is launching its Reading for Understanding Research Initiative. Through this Initiative, the Institute intends to establish a Research and Development (R&D) Network that focuses on the development of reading comprehension from prekindergarten through Grade 12. The R&D Network will be comprised of a small number of Core Teams and one or two Assessment Teams. The Reading for Understanding Research Initiative (Reading Initiative) is intended to support applied basic research to (a) identify underlying processes that are malleable and potential targets for intervention, (b) develop and evaluate interventions (e.g., instructional approaches, curricula, technology, teacher professional development programs) to improve reading comprehension for students in prekindergarten through Grade 12, and (c) develop and validate assessments of reading comprehension. The Reading Initiative will take a comprehensive approach to tackling the problem of improving reading comprehension. In addition, the Institute plans for the Reading Initiative to change the way in which research on reading has been conducted by accelerating the research process and creating a tightly linked network of researchers.

• Chronically Low-Performing Schools Research Initiative
  To increase research efforts to improve chronically low-performing schools, the Institute is launching its Chronically Low-Performing Schools Research Initiative (Low-Performing Schools Initiative). For the Low-Performing Schools Initiative, the Institute invites applications to develop interventions that target specific problems faced by chronically low-performing schools and test the promise of strategies for successfully addressing those problems within a relatively short time period. Over the five-year project period, grantees will be expected to develop and test a number of practices that principals of low-performing schools, with support from their district, could implement to improve their schools. The Institute views this approach as distinct from comprehensive school reform strategies. That is, the purpose of this initiative is not to generate a single approach to simultaneously address all of the problems that a low-performing school faces. Rather, the purpose of this research initiative is to systematically develop and test practices that could contribute to a menu of practices that principals, with support from their district (or districts with the support of their principals), could choose from to target specific challenges in their persistently low-performing schools. The Institute realizes that chronically low-performing schools may require more than the practices developed and piloted under this Initiative to fully address the causes of their persistent low performance. At the same time, the Institute recognizes that districts and principals often do not have access to research-based practices to address specific problems in their low-performing schools. By developing a set of such practices, this Initiative seeks to provide them with such options.

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