Description:

Well executed randomized experiments provide the strongest evidence about causal effects of educational interventions, products, and services. But randomized experiments may not always be feasible or successful. As a result, quasi-experimental designs are often used in education research for causal purposes. However, the quality of quasi-experimental designs and their application varies widely. In addition, knowledge of the better quasi-experimental designs that provide stronger evidence for making causal connections is not currently widespread among educational researchers. This is in part due to the ongoing advances being made in quasi-experimental methods. The purpose of this project is to build the capacity of the education research community to carry out advanced quasi-experiments. Two one-week summer research training workshops on quasi-experimental design and analysis will be held each year of the grant at Northwestern University for a total of six workshops. Each workshop is to include 60 participants for a total of approximately 360 researchers and they are to be drawn from faculty, postdoctoral students and senior graduate students as well as employees in the Federal, state, and local government and contract research firms.

** This project was submitted to and funded as an Unsolicited application in FY 2010.