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National Center for Education Research


The National Center for Education Research (NCER) supports rigorous research that addresses the nation’s most pressing education needs, from early childhood to adult education.

Application Information – Summer Research Training Institute: Quasi-Experimental Design and Analysis in Education  (Apr 24) 
The National Center for Education Research, within the Institute of Education Sciences, is pleased to announce its third annual Summer Research Training Institute on Quasi-Experimental Design and Analysis in Education. 
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Application Information – Summer Research Training Institute: Design, Implementation, and Analysis of Within-Study Comparison   (Apr 23) 
The National Center for Education Research, within the Institute of Education Sciences, is pleased to announce a Summer Research Training Institute on the Design, Implementation, and Analysis of Within-Study Comparison. 
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IES Announces New Series of Funding Opportunities Webinars   (Mar 30) 
The Institute of Education Sciences will host a series of funding opportunities webinars in April - August, 2012. 
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NCER Announces New FY 2012 Research and Research Training Grants   (Mar 6) 
IES recently made new research and research training grant awards for applications considered under the June 2011 deadline. 
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Application Information – Summer Research Training Institute: Cluster-Randomized Trials  (Feb 1) 
The National Center for Education Research, within the Institute of Education Sciences, is pleased to announce its sixth Summer Research Training Institute on Cluster-Randomized Trials. 
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rigorous research that contributes to the solution of significant education problems in our country

Highlights from NCER (Archive)

NCER Grantee Receives Early Career Research Award
Florida State University's Victor Sampson, a National Center for Education Research (NCER) grantee, was awarded the 2012 Early Career Research Award from the National Association for Research in Science Teaching. The Early Career Research Award is given annually to a researcher who, within the first seven years after completion of their doctoral degree, demonstrates the greatest potential to make outstanding and continuing contributions to research in science education.

Dr. Sampson is an Assistant Professor in the School of Teacher Education and the FSU-Teach Program. He specializes in argumentation, assessment, and teacher professional development in science education. His work centers on ways to promote more meaningful learning inside the classroom and ways to provide teachers with opportunities to learn within and from their practice in a way that initiates and sustains change.

The focal point of Dr. Sampson's research thus far has been on how students engage in argumentation in the context of science and how to make this type of activity more productive in the classroom. His current work focuses on the ways students support and evaluate ideas through discussion and writing in the context of science, especially group and individual meaning making during argumentation. A leader in the development of innovative instructional materials and strategies that emphasize argumentation as part of the doing, teaching, and learning of science, Sampson has also studied how teachers' knowledge and beliefs about science, learning, and science teaching affect how they teach. More information about Dr. Sampson's IES grant can be found here: http://ies.ed.gov/ncer/projects/grant.asp?ProgID=12&grantid=1011&InvID=728

Victor Sampson