James Benson
About
Dr. James Benson served as a program officer for the Postsecondary and Adult Education program until his retirement in 2025.
Associated IES Content
Improving Pandemic Recovery Efforts in Education Agencies
In FY 2022, IES established the Improving Pandemic Recovery Efforts in Education Agencies (Improving Pandemic Recovery) grant program to support research to counteract instructional and learning loss encountered by many learners during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Arts in Education
The National Center for Education Research (NCER) competed the Arts in Education special topic during its fiscal year (FY) 2017 and FY 2018 Education Research Grants (305A) competitions. The Arts in Education special topic was developed to highlight the opportunity for arts research funding through the 305A program, and to increase attention to research projects seeking to improve education outcomes
Postsecondary and Adult Education
The Postsecondary and Adult Education (PSAE) topic area supports research that will lead to improved access to, persistence in, progress through, and completion of postsecondary and adult education programs, including the full range of adult literacy activities described in Title II of the 2015 Work Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), sub-baccalaureate programs, and associate's and bachelor's degree programs.
Minutes of Meeting: February 22, 2013
NBES meeting minutes on February 22, 2013
Scalable Strategies to Support College Completion Network
In FY 2016, the Institute initiated a new grant program, Research Networks Focused on Critical Problems of Policy and Practice, to focus resources and attention on education problems or issues that are high priorities for the nation
Using Longitudinal Data to Support State Education Policymaking
In FY 2021, IES began the Using Longitudinal Data to Support State Policymaking grant program (Using Data for Policymaking) to expand State agencies' use of their State Longitudinal Data Systems* (SLDS) for generating evidence in support of education policy decisions.
Continuous Improvement Research in Education
Through the Continuous Improvement topic, IES supported partnerships between research institutions and state or local education agencies to address a specific education issue or problem of high importance to the education agency.
Community College Recovery Research Network
In FY 2022, IES established the Improving Pandemic Recovery Efforts in Education Agencies (Improving Pandemic Recovery) grant program to support research to counteract academic losses encountered by many learners during the COVID-19 pandemic and to conduct research in partnership with state and local education agencies to improve learner engagement, reengagement, and achievement with a focus on underrepresented student subgroups that were disproportionately affected by COVID-19.
Grant
Evidence to Inform Improvement: Supporting California Community Colleges in Pandemic Recovery
The purpose of this Network project is to assess pandemic recovery efforts undertaken by the California Community Colleges (CCC) through a set of research and dissemination activities aiming to: (1) determine what recovery activities CCC have engaged in, and how supplemental federal, state, and philanthropic dollars were spent in those efforts; (2) examine which of these recovery activities have contributed to improving student outcomes; and (3) engage community college leaders and state pol...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305X220016
Grant
Multi-Site Randomized Controlled Trial of Better Futures Postsecondary Access Intervention for Youth in Foster Care
The purpose of this study is to assess the efficacy of the Better Futures program for increasing the postsecondary attainment of older youth in foster care (approximate ages 16-20) through a multi-site randomized controlled trial (RCT). Youth with foster care experience are a highly diverse, highly vulnerable population that face daunting challenges in relation to accessing and being successful in postsecondary education. The Better Futures postsecondary access intervention for youth in fost...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A220123
Grant
Exploring Co-Requisite Developmental Education Models
This project extends the body of research on co-requisite remediation at the postsecondary level to understand the relationship between institution-level decisions about the structure and intensity of co-requisite courses and students' postsecondary outcomes. The project will attend to whether institution-level decisions lead to improved outcomes for students of different race/ethnicities, English Language Learner (ELL) status, level of academic preparation, and gender. This project responds...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210319
Grant
Understanding the Support Networks of First-Generation College Students
In this mixed-methods project, researchers will describe the support networks and help-seeking preferences and behaviors of first-generation students at four public colleges in California, and explore relations between these preferences and behaviors and key postsecondary outcomes. By combining a qualitative analysis of students' social networks with a quantitative analysis of administrative data, the research team will generate insights that colleges may use to strengthen existing service...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210494
Grant
Evaluating the Longer Term Impact of Early College High Schools on Workforce and Life Outcomes
The proposed study will address a gap in the literature on whether attending an Early College High School (EC) results in significant gains in longer-term outcomes including college degree completion, workforce outcomes, college debt, and other life outcomes compared with not attending an EC. ECs are a type of dual enrollment program in which (1) it is expected that all students take college-level courses and (2) the prescribed curriculum facilitates the accrual of 2 years of college credits...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210017
Grant
Improving the Education and Labor Market Outcomes of Students in Subbaccalaureate Postsecondary Institutions: What Can We Learn From Ohio's System of Public Career and Technical Centers?
Many states are seeking to increase the number of individuals who hold sub-baccalaureate postsecondary certificates in occupational fields. Most postsecondary certificates are awarded by community colleges (CCs), but a number of states have a second system of public sub-baccalaureate institutions that award postsecondary certificates, known as career and technical centers (CTCs). Limited evidence suggests that student completion and employment rates are notably higher in CTCs than in CCs, bu...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A200221
Grant
Connecting Community College Students to Public and Community Resources: An Experimental Evaluation of Single Stop
Studies indicate that many college students face major issues with financial and basic needs insecurity. Colleges are increasingly looking for ways to help students to address the life challenges they face that act as barriers to successful degree and certificate completion. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the implementation, impact, and costs of a widely used intervention designed to support such students called Single Stop.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A200101
Grant
Improving Outcomes and Accelerating Completion With Corequisite Remediation in Mathematics: An Efficacy Study
The purpose of this study is to conduct a randomized trial of the Statway Corequisite course in community college mathematics. Corequisite remediation has emerged as a promising approach to improving student success. Early results show that it can be highly effective in comparison to traditional remediation and warrants further investigation, in particular into the impact of alignment of course content to student goals and instructional design. In addition, due to concerns from college educa...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A200256
Grant
Building Local Collaborative Capacity for Selecting, Implementing and Evaluating Evidence-Based Interventions
The purpose of this training program is to help build the capacity of higher-education faculty, education researchers, and staff of local and state education agencies to effectively use evidence-based interventions to improve student and school outcomes.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305B200024
Grant
Reducing Summer Melt: Text Messaging Effectiveness
This project willconceptually replicate and test whether Castleman and Page's “summer melt” text messaging intervention increases college enrollment, persistence, and credential attainment for college-intending seniors at high-poverty high schools when implemented at scale in routine educational settings. Researchers will also test a persistence enhancement that will provide additional supports during the first year of college. Text messaging is a popular and inexpensive strategy...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A190074
Grant
The Higher Education Randomized Controlled Trial (THE-RCT) Project: Synthesizing Evidence from 15+ Years of RCTs in Postsecondary Education
This project synthesized evidence from 15+ years of postsecondary randomized controlled trials (RCTs) conducted by MDRC to draw conclusions about effective intervention strategies for boosting rates of college success. Drawing on detailed data from 30 large-scale postsecondary RCTs of 39 interventions, including 65,000 students, this project
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A190161
Grant
Mapping Workforce Certificate and Degree Pathways in Ohio: Are Postsecondary Training Opportunities Setting Students Up for Success?
This project sought to improve student progression through stackable credential pipelines -sequences of aligned credentials that connect from short-term certificates to a bachelor's degree and beyond in a chosen field. The partnership team assessed growth in stackable credential programs in health, manufacturing, and information technology; patterns of credential-stacking; and earnings outcomes for individuals who stacked credentials. Based on these findings, the team developed an agenda for...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H190033
Grant
The Consequences of High School Exit Examinations for Student Life Outcomes: Evidence from a Research-Practice Partnership in Massachusetts
The partnership team will evaluate Massachusetts' long-standing policy of requiring students to pass high school exit examinations (HSEE) in core subjects to earn a high school diploma. The team will generate robust causal evidence of the impact of Massachusetts exit examinations administered between 2002 and 2019 on long-term student outcomes including educational attainment, labor market earnings, and criminal justice involvement. During the state's transition to a new assessment (2020-202...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H190035
Grant
The Effects of College Aid Programs: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
The research team conducted systematic literature review and meta-analysis to estimate the effects of different types of financial aid programs on college student outcomes from initial enrollment to post-college labor market outcomes.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A180102
Grant
Designing Crowdsourced Mentorship to Support Low-Income High School Students' College Enrollment
This partnership will develop and test a mentorship model for extending advising to college-accepted high school graduates during the summer months after graduation. Prior research has documented a pattern of "summer melt" in which motivated and academically-prepared high school graduates who have been accepted to college decide not to enroll in college. Summer melt is especially prevalent among low-income, African American, and Latinx students. Through prior research, the partnership team i...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H180051
Grant
Efficacy of Viridis Learning Tool: A Technology-Based Approach to Advising and Job Matching
The purpose of this project is to assess the efficacy of the Viridis tool, a multi-platform software application designed to facilitate credential completion and subsequent job placement for community college students enrolled in one-year occupational certificate programs. Although significant increases in wages and job quality are associated with certificate completion, many students do not complete a credential of any kind before exiting community college. Unfinished occupational credentia...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A180377
Grant
A Leaky Pipeline: Community College Students and Pathways to the Bachelor's Degree
In this project, researchers seek to identify malleable factors that have the potential to increase the low percentage of community college students who transfer to a bachelor's degree program and subsequently complete a bachelor's degree. By identifying the specific stages in the transfer pipeline at which many students stall-as well as the supports that can help them to transition to subsequent stages-this project will generate actionable insights for college leaders and inform future rese...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A180139
Grant
An Experimental Evaluation of Corequisite Developmental Education in Texas
The partnership assessed whether placing incoming college students testing near college-ready in writing into a corequisite model that paired a college-level English Composition I course with a concurrent developmental education support produced higher rates of college success than requiring these students to complete a developmental (remedial) Integrated Reading and Writing course prior to enrolling in credit-bearing courses. The evaluation responded to prior research evidence showing that ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H170085
Grant
Heterogeneous Effects of English Learner Reclassification on Achievement Trajectories
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of four different reclassification policies in two different districts on a variety of academic outcomes. English Learners (ELs) are an academically vulnerable population to whom schools provide language support until they reach a certain level of mastery in spoken and written English. Once ELs reach their state or district's level of mastery, they are then reclassified, and no longer receive English language support services. A key policy ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A170288
Grant
Doubling Up? Understanding the Long-Term Effects of Ninth-grade Algebra Reform on College Persistence and Graduation
In this project, the research team will assess whether the "double-dose algebra" policy implemented by Chicago Public Schools (CPS) between 2003 and 2004 led to increases in college attainment and degree completion for students assigned to extra math instruction as a result of the policy. This project builds on three previous IES-funded projects, all of which found positive effects associated with the double dose policy. An initial Efficacy and Replication project found that 9th-grade algebr...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A170602
Grant
The Outcomes and Return on Investment of Concurrent Enrollment in Colorado: A Researcher-Practitioner Partnership to Improve Postsecondary Access and Success
The goals of this project are to:
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H170049
Grant
College Completion Network Lead
The College Completion Network Lead provides the organizational structure needed to ensure that the College Completion Network runs smoothly and accomplishes its goals and objectives. The Network Lead coordinates annual meetings of the entire Network as well as ongoing working group meetings focused on crucial completion-related topics. The Lead will conduct independent research to inform the network and the broader public, including a gap analysis of current college completion research and ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305N170003
Grant
Affording Degree Completion: A Study of Completion Grants at Accessible Public Universities
This project will refine and evaluate completion grants, a form of financial aid that some postsecondary institutions provide to students who are close to completing their degrees yet at risk of departure from college due to insufficient funding to cover their tuition and student fees. Completion grants combine relatively small amounts of financial grant aid ($500 to $1500) with "skin in the game" requirements,which encourage students to take responsibility for succeeding in college. The mai...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305N170020
Grant
AIR Early College Follow-Up Efficacy Study
In this project, researchers assessed whether early college high schools (ECHS), as implemented under routine conditions in five states, produced significant gains in postsecondary outcomes for students who attended them, compared to students that attended other district high schools. This is a follow-up to a previous American Institutes for Research (AIR) efficacy study that followed students for a minimum of two and a maximum of four years after high school, depending on the year in which ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A160140
Grant
Could Connecting Students with Financial Aid Lead to Better College Outcomes? A Proposal to Test the Effectiveness of FAFSA Interventions Using the NPSAS Sample
In this project, researchers investigate whether an intervention that provides financial aid information to college students increases receipt of financial aid, enrollment on a full-time (versus part-time) basis, persistence from semester to semester, and degree completion. If proven beneficial, the intervention could be widely replicated based on information that is already available in federal and institutional databases. The goal of the intervention is to alter students' perceptions of th...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A160388
Grant
Assessing the Long-Term Efficacy and Costs of the City University of New York's (CUNY'S) Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP)
In this project, the research team will assess whether the City University of New York's (CUNY's) Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) intervention causes more college students to complete degrees, measured at seven years after initial college enrollment. This is a follow-up study to a previous efficacy study conducted by MDRC and funded by the New York City Center for Economic Opportunity. Because the ASAP intervention includes a comprehensive set of supports over a long (three-ye...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A160273
Grant
Evaluation of Florida's Developmental Education Redesign
The research team for this project will take a broad, mixed-methods approach to assessing the effects of a new law passed by the Florida legislature in 2013. The law (Senate Bill 1720) makes developmental education optional for most Florida college students and mandates a set of changes to how Florida colleges deliver developmental courses and provide supports to students. Features of the law, including innovative methods for delivering developmental courses and the emphasis on providing stu...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A160166
Grant
Mapping Barriers to Community College Completion Among Older Learners: Identifying Malleable Factors to Improve Student Outcomes
The goal of this exploratory project is to identify malleable factors at the student, instructor/classroom, and institution levels that can lead to improved education and labor market outcomes for older workers. Identifying malleable factors for adult students ages 40 to 64 has the potential to help them remain competitive in the labor market as they seek to upgrade their skills and credentials in response to demands within the increasingly technological and information-based economy. This r...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A160156
Grant
Financial Aid Nudges: A National Experiment to Increase Retention of Financial Aid and College Persistence
In this project, researchers investigate whether an intervention that provides financial aid information, reminders, and advising to college students increases completion of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and compliance with the Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) requirements of the Pell grant program. The research team will convey information, reminders, and offers of additional assistance to students via text message. The intervention is expected to work by making s...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A160400
Grant
Nudges to the Finish Line: Experimental Interventions to Prevent Late College Departure
This research team will investigate whether text messages that provide personalized information to students attending open- and broad-access enrollment institutions will help them complete their college degrees. The team will complete both development and evaluation activities. The main objective during the development phase of the project will be to develop a text messaging campaign that is informed by the specific informational, behavioral, and psychological challenges that can pose obstac...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305N160026
Grant
The Men of Color College Achievement (MoCCA) Project
In partnership with the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), this research team will refine and evaluate a college success course combined with a set of services designed to boost the success of male students of color. This project addresses the problem that college completion rates for men of color at open- and broad-access postsecondary institutions lag behind completion rates for most other students. The team will complete both development and evaluation activities for an interve...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305N160025
Grant
Continuous Improvement Research to Support the Implementation of a Statewide Reform to Postsecondary Developmental Education—A RAND-THECB Research Partnership
This partnership engaged in continuous improvement strategies and research to help Texas colleges develop and implement effective approaches to complying with the state's developmental education reform policy. Historically, institutions have committed substantial resources to developmental education to prepare students for college-level coursework, yet many students never completed their developmental course sequence or moved on to credit-bearing coursework. Low rates of success in developme...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H150069
Grant
Continuous Improvement of a What Works Clearinghouse Rated Early Mathematics Intervention
In this implementation science project researchers and local public pre-kindergarten administrators and teachers worked as teams to improve teachers' implementation of a What Works Clearinghouse-reviewed curriculum, Pre-K Mathematics. Previous IES-funded research (see Related Projects below) has found this curriculum to be effective at improving low-income students' readiness for elementary school mathematics. Anecdotal evidence has suggested that some teachers, who have learned to implement...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H150093
Grant
California Community Colleges and Career Technical Education: A Research-Practitioner Partnership
This project was a collaboration between researchers at the University of California at Davis (UCD) and the Chancellor's Office of the California Community College (CCCCO) system. The purpose was to investigate the outcomes of students enrolled in CTE courses and programs at the state's community colleges. Specifically, the project focused on:
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H150073
Grant
Changing the Odds: A Short-Cycle Approach to Improving Students' Long-Term Mathematics Outcomes
The purpose of this project is to address the problem that weak math achievement among middle school students leaves them unprepared for high school-level math course work, thereby putting them at risk for leaving high school, or graduating from high school unprepared for college or employment. Researchers will follow a continuous improvement process as they implement, adapt, and revise a math instruction intervention with four high-poverty middle schools that use professional learning commu...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H150028
Grant
Continuous Improvement in Ninth Grade Student Outcomes through Engaging Families to Support Students in the Transition from Middle to High School
The partnership formed for this research project will work with middle and high schools to improve family engagement with school as students make the transition from middle to high school. Partners will address truancy and course failure during ninth grade, as they have significant negative impacts on students' probabilities of graduating from high school. Although research shows that family involvement in children's schooling increases attendance and school performance, family involvement i...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H150081
Grant
An Investigation of Direct Instruction Spoken English for At-Risk English Learners
This project will evaluate the efficacy of the Direct Instruction Spoken English (DISE) program, a program currently in use in 25 states to teach oral language skills to adolescent ELLs. Findings from this study will provide rigorous evidence for educators as they select programs to help middle school English language learners (ELLs) acquire proficiency in oral English. Studies will estimate the effects of DISE for all students, explore the program components related to improvement in oral l...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A150325
Grant
Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction and Learning (C-SAIL)
The Research and Development Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL) will examine the implementation of college- and career-ready standards in 5 states, assess how they are related to student outcomes in 50 states, and test an intervention that supports standards-aligned instruction in 5 states. C-SAIL's launch occurs at a time when states and districts across the country are engaged in a variety of initiatives aimed at implementing college- and career-ready standa...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305C150007
Grant
Impact of Early College High School (ECHS) Model on Postsecondary Performance and Completion
Early colleges are small, innovative high schools that combine college with high school to increase college success for students under-represented in postsecondary education. The Early College High School (ECHS) model targets students from low-income families, students who will be the first in their family to attend college, and students from minoritized racial and ethnic groups. This project assessed the efficacy of the ECHS model as implemented in North Carolina, a state that began impleme...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A140361
Grant
Exploring Washington's College Bound Scholarship Program: Sign-Up Decisions and the Relationship between Program Eligibility and Performance, Incarceration, College Going, and Persistence
This project will address the income gap in college admission and completion by exploring Washington State's College Bound Scholarship Program, a program designed to improve college attainment for low-income Washington students. The Washington College Bound Scholarship Program (WSP) is a pledge-based scholarship program designed to help low-income students get on a path toward college and provide them resources to make college affordable. The WSP-and similar promise scholarship programs-diff...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A140697
Grant
Digital Messaging to Improve College Enrollment and Success
This project will assess the efficacy of an intervention that provides high quality college-going information as well as informational counseling to low-income students when they are applying to, enrolling in, and entering college. Because low-income students often come from families with limited college experience, and may not receive adequate information about college from their high schools, the college application process can pose a substantial barrier to enrolling in college. The interv...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A140121
Grant
Coaching to Improve Common Core Aligned Mathematics Instruction in Tennessee
The Common Core State Standards in Mathematics (CCSS-M) set high standards for procedural fluency, conceptual understanding, and reasoning, and call upon teachers to instruct in ways that support students as they work to meet these ambitious standards. As districts and states work toward implementing the CCSS-M, they are revisiting typical professional development for mathematics teachers.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H140112
Grant
Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness
During the past 40 years, the United States has made major advances in expanding access to postsecondary education, but many students arrive at college without the requisite English and math skills to perform college-level work. Community colleges and other open-access institutions have traditionally responded by placing such students into sequential developmental (or remedial) education courses with outdated curricula and instructional practices. Unfortunately, research indicates that stude...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305C140007
Grant
Testing the Promise: A Randomized Trial of a Promise College Scholarship for Urban Public School Students
This research project assesses the efficacy of The Degree Project (TDP), a "promise program" which seeks to increase college preparation, enrollment, and degree completion among low-income, urban high school students by promising ninth-grade students a scholarship if they engage in college-preparation activities during high school. Promise programs are widely used (73 programs nationally) and are feasible alternatives to traditional "late commitment" grant and loan programs (e.g., Pell grant...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A130044
Grant
What Works for Title I Schools: Understanding the Contributors and Barriers to School Improvement
The goal of this partnership was to lay the groundwork for future improvements to Arizona's Priority schools using a three-part strategy. First, the partnership identified measures in existing ADE data sources that predict student achievement. Next, the partnership employed these measures to assess the effectiveness of ADE school improvement strategies. The partnership assessed factors that predict student achievement within Arizona's 74 Priority schools as well as a sub-sample of 74 medium-...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H130080
Grant
New York City Partnership for College Readiness and Success
he team sought to enhance the capacity of the NYCDOE and CUNY to monitor student progress toward college-ready credentials, hold schools and colleges accountable for helping students reach this goal, and develop interventions and supports for schools that struggle to keep students on track toward college.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H130048
Grant
Academic Trajectories and Policies to Narrow Achievement Gaps in San Diego
The goal of this project was to enhance the SDUSD's access to high-quality, relevant information by producing ideal trajectories-what it means to be "on track" at every stage of in ideal student's career-as well as accurate on-track indicators of individual students' on-track statuses.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H130059
Grant
State Merit Aid Program and Student College Choice and Success: Evaluating the Efficacy of Florida's Bright Futures Program
In this study, the researchers will evaluate the effects of Florida's Bright Futures Scholarship program, a merit aid program, on: (1) college enrollment and degree production in the state and its different postsecondary institution types, and (2) students' college choice, persistence, and degree completion.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A110609
Grant
Ready or Not? California's Early Assessment Program and the Transition to College
Despite the pressing need to ensure that more students obtain a postsecondary degree, little is known about the aspects of specific program components that lead to college readiness and degree completion. This study investigates the efficacy of a fully-developed state program intended to better support the transition from high school to postsecondary schooling by reducing the need for remedial courses in college- California's Early Assessment Program (EAP). Two potential mechanisms by which...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A100971
Grant
Causes and Consequences of Public Subsidies in Higher Education: Evidence from Community College Districts
Governments spend a great deal of money on across-the-board subsidies to promote college access. Despite the expensive nature of this intervention, little is known about its impact on academic outcomes and labor market success. This project is the first comprehensive study of a state system of community college taxing districts (i.e., districts that have a property tax designed to help fund community college education) on individual economic and societal well-being. It is designed to answer...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A100369
Grant
Project Families4College (F4C)
The purpose of this project is to develop a modular curriculum designed to address parent and student access to information about college and planning ahead for college, especially for high-risk Hispanic/Latino families and students. Implemented in partnership with high schools, the Project Families4College (F4C) is intended to develop parent and student “college knowledge” through two-way streams of communication between the home and school to enhance college enrollment. F4C will immer...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A140699
Grant
Performance-Based Scholarship Demonstration — An Alternative Financial Aid Program to Incentivize Academic Success
The project will extend an ongoing randomized control trial, known as the Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration that is evaluating the impacts of incentive scholarships on postsecondary outcomes for low-income college students. The PBS Demonstration began in 2008 and has recruited over 10,000 students across four states. Funded by other sources, the PBS Demonstration tracks college students' academic outcomes for up to two years after random assignment. This project will further ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A110204
Grant
Strategizing for College: A Game-based Approach to Increasing College Access
Through the development of online games, this project will attempt to develop a means for students to learn, both on their own and through social interaction with peers, about their postsecondary options and how to attain them. The intended audience is students with low-income backgrounds who are not aware of their postsecondary options and who attend schools lacking strong college guidance counseling.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A110288
Grant
Bringing Rigor and Relevance to High School Reform Through Thematic Curricula
The project will examine the promise of real-world, theme-based learning for engaging students in academic work at high schools serving predominantly low achieving, minority and and/or economically disadvantaged students and offering opportunities for students to focus on a career or interest in smaller learning environments.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A100423
Grant
Turnaround Intervention for Transformation of High-Need Schools
This project will continue the development of the Turnaround for Children's model for school change. Turnaround has worked in New York City public schools to develop an intervention model to enable high-poverty, low-performing schools to become safe and successful centers of teaching, learning, and academic achievement. This project is to tighten and improve the model in a more systematic and data-driven manner in order to position it for a rigorous evaluation and to contribute to the knowle...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A100358
Grant
Doubling Up? The Impact of Remedial Algebra on Students' Long-Run Outcomes
Over the past twenty years, there has been a movement across the nation for districts to implement "Algebra-for-all" policies in which 9th (or even 8th) grade students are required to take introductory algebra regardless of whether the students are academically prepared. School districts, especially those with high concentration of 9th grade students who lack foundational math skills, are concerned that early failure in algebra may lead to a series of negative consequences for struggling stu...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A120466
Grant
The Educational Benefits of Attending High-Performing High Schools
In school districts nationwide, policymakers are implementing reforms that rest on a simple assumption: students do better when they attend schools with high achievement levels. Vouchers, school closings, and school choice policies all aim to improve student outcomes by shifting students from lower-performing to higher-performing schools. Schools are often deemed high performing based on statistics reported about their students' academic attainment: average test scores, percentage of student...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A120136
Grant
The Efficacy of Personal Response Systems (Clickers) as Learning Tools: A Multidisciplinary, Large-Scale, Empirical Evaluation
A Personal Response System (PRS, also known as "Clickers") is a widely used classroom technology that allows instructors to present multiple-choice questions in any classroom equipped with digital projection. Students purchase a remote response devise that allows them to "click in" responses, which are recorded by a receiver that is connected to a computer. PRS is widely used in colleges and universities but surprisingly few studies have been conducted on PRS-assisted learning outcomes. Pre...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A100625
Grant
A Meta-Analysis of Parent Involvement Interventions and Family-School Partnerships' Effects on Student Outcomes
Interactions and experiences within home and school systems, uniquely and together, form the foundation for developmental trajectories throughout students' educational careers. Previous research on parental involvement suggests that when parents are involved in their children's schooling, students experience increased achievement and academic performance, stronger self-regulatory skills, fewer discipline problems, better study habits, more positive attitudes toward school, improved homework ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A120144
Grant
Evaluating the Long-Term Effects and the Costs of Two Community College Interventions
Community colleges serve as an important doorway to higher education for a growing number of minority and low-income students, working adults, parents, and first-generation college students. A large number of such students who enter with the goal of completing a college degree are not successful. To address this problem, a number of innovative programs have been developed to support entering community college students at-risk for dropping out. This project will evaluate the long-term educat...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A100066
Grant
Improving Information and Access to Financial Aid: Expanding the FAFSA Experiment
The purpose of the proposed research is to test the effects of simplifying the financial aid application process and providing assistance at scale. Findings from previous efficacy studies found that these two supports led to a 20 percent increase in college attendance in our target areas in Ohio and North Carolina. The team will recruit participants in this scale-up evaluation from the 3.5 million individuals who use free tax-filing services, and will randomly assign families to different ty...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A120280
Grant
Simplification and Incentives: A Randomized Experiment for Increasing College Savings
In acknowledgement of the growing importance of family savings in the face of rapidly increasing college costs, a major focus of recent federal and state financial aid policies has been to encourage families to save for themselves. However, few families actually utilize these plans to save for college, and little is known about why. The purpose of this research is to test several possible ways to influence participation in college savings plans and subsequent savings behavior.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A090204
Grant
Promoting College Enrollment among Disadvantaged Students: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Two Low-Cost Interventions
The research team will test the efficacy of V-SOURCE (Virtual Student Outreach for College Enrollment), a 15-month program designed to increase college access among academically eligible, disadvantaged high school students by providing support for the college application process. The project will also test the efficacy of a less intensive variant of the program, Milestones, which focuses on getting students to complete key college-application milestones using automated reminders and incentiv...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A110809
Grant
The Center for Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment
The Center for Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment (CAPSEE) conducts research and provides national leadership (in cooperation with IES) in order to advance knowledge regarding the link between postsecondary education and the labor market. The Center aims to clarify this link with attention to three key topics: (1) relatively short-term occupational degrees (occupational associate degrees and certificates or diplomas) that are designed to improve labor market outcomes; (2) th...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305C110011
Grant
Follow-Up to the Study of the Efficacy of North Carolina's Early College High School Model
This project will carry out a follow-up of students already taking part in an evaluation of North Carolina's Early College High School program. Early College High Schools are intended to increase the number of students graduating from high school who are prepared for and who enroll in postsecondary education. In this follow-up study of an earlier IES grant (R305R060022) that found significant initial impacts on 9th and 10th graders, impacts will be estimated for longer-term outcomes includin...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A110085
Grant
Evaluating the Success of Undergraduates in the U-Pace Intervention to Improve Academic Achievement for All Postsecondary Education Students
The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee has developed an instructional approach, known as U-PACE, for its introductory psychology course that combines self-paced online learning with mastery learning and amplified assistance (in which the instructor initiates support to student on both course material and to increase student motivation). The goal of this instructional approach is to improve student achievement in these courses and increase student retention. This project will evaluate U-PAC...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A110112
Grant
Evaluating the Effects of Basic Skills Mathematics Placement on Academic Outcomes of Community College Students
Many community college students have basic skills needs substantially below the traditional college level. Every year, more than 50 percent of the students in the Los Angeles Community College District are placed into basic skills mathematics courses. These students must extend their community college careers by a considerable time and their institutions devote significant resources to basic skills rather than college-level instruction. This study will evaluate the effectiveness of basic mat...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A100381
Grant
Assessing the Efficacy of Online Credit Recovery in Algebra I for At-Risk Ninth Graders
Failing Algebra I in the first year of high school significantly decreases a student's likelihood of graduating. Getting students back on track is a high priority, yet little rigorous evidence exists about credit recovery options. This study will test the efficacy of offering an online Algebra I course in the summer after 9th grade for first time 9th graders who failed the second semester of Algebra I.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A110149
Grant
Evaluation of a Random Assignment Intervention to Improve College Choice Among High Achieving, Low Income Students
Evidence suggests that low-income, high-achieving students are not as likely to attend selective colleges as their high-income, high-achieving peers. However, selective colleges have much greater resources per student than typical nonselective four-year colleges, including such resources as more faculty members per student, better trained faculty, and better campus facilities and services. This study evaluates the effects of four interventions designed to increase application to selective co...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A100120
Grant
Evaluation of Ninth Grade Academies in Broward County Public Schools
The purpose of the project is to assess the impact of Ninth Grade Academies (NGAs) on student engagement and performance in ninth grade and throughout high school. NGAs in Broward County and Florida are self-contained units located in a designated area of the school, with their own dedicated teaching faculty, guidance staff, and social services to create an intact community for the transition year of ninth grade. They have interdisciplinary teacher teams that share the same students and have...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305E090019
Grant
Getting Qualified High School Seniors to Enroll in College: An Experimental Study in Vermont
This project addresses high school seniors who are academically prepared for college but who choose not to apply. From earlier work, the researchers have identified a population of such students. They will develop and pilot a low cost late-intervention program to promote college going among academically able high school seniors. The intervention combines both counseling and financial incentive components. The program will be piloted with academically qualified high school seniors in the clas...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A080132
Grant
An Evaluation of the SOURCE (Student Outreach for College Enrollment) Program: An Intervention to Promote College Application and Enrollment Among Urban Youth
In the early 2000s, young people from higher income families were much more likely to attend college than those of limited means, and only about half of the disparity was attributed to differences in high school grades and test scores. The researchers conducted this study to assess an advising program that sought to increase college-going among inner-city youth. The advising program was motivated by research that showed disadvantaged students were less successful than other students in compl...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305F050274
Grant
Interdisciplinary Training Program in the Education Sciences (ITP)
The Interdisciplinary Training Program (ITP) at the University of Wisconsin, Madison trained fellows to carry out rigorous quantitative research to provide scientific evidence on pressing problems of policy and practice in education.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305C050055
Grant
Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education
The Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education (CDDRE) conducts research into how school districts can use data-driven reform to improve student achievement. CDDRE provides the following services to state, district, and school leadership teams through its Raising the Bar program:
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A040082
Grant
Montana Continuous Improvement in Education Research to Improve Secondary School Literacy Outcomes
In this project, the researchers employed a continuous improvement process to support the literacy skills of middle and high school students. Although literacy programs such as the Montana Striving Readers Program (MSRP) had made progress toward improving the literacy skills of elementary and middle school students, the MT-OPI remained concerned regarding the large numbers of Montana economically disadvantaged students and American Indian students entering secondary schools with insufficient...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H150003
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