University of Pittsburgh
Associated IES Content
Grant
COVID-19 Adapted Schooling and Adolescents' Academic and Socioemotional Adjustment
Adolescents' daily lives have been dramatically disrupted by COVID-19-related school closures and crisis-adapted educational arrangements (i.e., socially distanced in-person, hybrid, and remote learning models). Because schools serve as a primary socialization context for supporting youth's academic growth and socioemotional competence through interactions with adults and peers, the extended transition to COVID-adapted learning models may have altered adolescents' academic and socioemotional...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A220480
Grant
Developing a Context-Integrated Mindset / Belonging Intervention to Eliminate Demographic-based Underperformance in Challenging Large Lecture Undergraduate Courses
Many postsecondary students, including those at selective schools, may struggle to complete their degrees. These struggles are not evenly distributed. For example, students in large lecture courses and those who may be under-represented in the course or the course's field may be less likely to complete or persist in their programs than other students. Previous research has found that psychosocial interventions show promise for addressing such course-based inequities using highly cost-effecti...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210167
Grant
Just Discipline and Effective Restorative Practices: Assessing the Potential of Design Innovations and Implementation Science as Catalysts for Sustainable School Transformation
The purpose of this study is to test an innovative restorative practice model that uses a full-time restorative practitioner and youth leaders in the school to lead restorative method programming and to provide in-house training and expertise for teachers. Alternatives to exclusionary discipline like restorative practices are sorely needed in education, yet rigorous examinations of restorative practice effects have largely been inconclusive. Scholars and practitioners have noted that restora...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305T210046
Grant
The Effect of Content-Focused Coaching on Reading Comprehension Instruction: Evidence from Urban and Rural Schools
Results of national assessments show that a large percentage of students in the United States do not advance beyond basic levels of reading comprehension, and this is especially the case for minoritized students, English learners (ELs), and students living in poverty who are consistently and disproportionately represented within the lowest levels of reading achievement. The purpose of this project is to test the efficacy, implementation, and cost-effectiveness of a web-based professional dev...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210171
Grant
Response-to-Text Tasks to Assess Students' Use of Evidence and Organization in Writing: Using Natural Language Processing for Scoring Writing and Providing Feedback At-Scale
Researchers for this project will develop and validate an automated assessment of students' analytic writing skills in response to reading text. During prior work the researchers studied an assessment of students' analytic writing to understand progress toward outcomes in the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards, and to understand effective writing instruction by teachers. The researchers focused on response-to-text assessment because: it is an essential skill for secondary and ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A160245
Grant
The Research Institute for Scholars of Equity (RISE): Conducting Mixed Methods Research to Improve Academic Outcomes Among PK-20 African American and Latino/a Children, Youth and Young Adults
The new Research Institute for Scholars of Equity (RISE) at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) is designed to provide upper-level undergraduate students and recent graduates with experiences in conducting mixed-methods education research while preparing participants for doctoral study.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305B160015
Grant
Linking Dialogue and Student Modeling to Create an Enhanced Micro-adaptive Tutoring System
In this project, the research team will continue to develop and test Rimac, a tutorial dialogue system for physics developed with prior IES funding (Improving a Natural-Language Tutoring System that Engages Students in Deep Reasoning Dialogues about Physics) and currently serving as the test bed for a current exploration project (Exploring Studies to Derive Policies for Adaptive Natural-Language Tutoring in Physics). The researchers will create and incorporate a student modeling engine into ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A150155
Grant
Returning to Our Roots: Development of a Morphology Intervention to Bolster Academic Vocabulary Knowledge for Adolescent English Learners
This project will develop and test a new intervention called EL-RAVE designed to help middle school English Language Learners (ELLs) learn academic vocabulary. Comprehending academic texts can be particularly challenging for adolescent ELLs who are not fully proficient in English, and lack of comprehension contributes to lower achievement and reduced persistence in high school for ELLs. EL-RAVE will build on an existing intervention developed for monolingual students called Robust Academic V...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A160401
Grant
For Argument's Sake: Applying Questioning the Author Techniques to Move from Comprehension to composition of Written Arguments
The purpose of this project was to develop and test the feasibility and promise of an instructional intervention, Triple Q, which was designed to support middle school students' argument writing skills. The intervention includes three units of instruction in which students read and discuss argument texts, examine the features and quality of the arguments within and across those texts, and draft and revise their own written arguments. The intervention uses Questioning the Author (QtA) queries...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A160403
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
Web-mediated Literacy Coaching for High-quality Reading Comprehension Instruction
Reading comprehension is critical to academic success, employment in the modern workplace, and to lifelong learning. Large numbers of students, however, are unable to read beyond a basic level of understanding. Recent studies indicate that comprehensive literacy-coaching interventions that combine formal learning opportunities for teachers (e.g., coursework) with individual coaching to support teachers' implementation of new instructional strategies can successfully increase the quality of ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A140384
Grant
Exploring Studies to Derive Policies for Adaptive Natural-Language Tutoring in Physics
Students' failure to grasp basic scientific concepts and apply these concepts to problem solving has been a persistent challenge, especially in physics education. Many educators and education policymakers have looked to intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) as a means of providing cost-effective, individualized instruction to students with the potential to improve their conceptual understanding of and problem-solving skills in math and science. The key to developing highly effective, adaptive ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A130441
Grant
Intelligent Scaffolding for Peer Reviews of Writing
The purpose of this project is to improve upon an existing software technology-Scaffolded Writing and Rewriting in the Disciplines (SWoRD)-that facilitates the writing and revision of essays and compositions, and handles the logistics of peer review (e.g., distribution of essays to reviewers, collection and distribution of anonymous reviewer comments to original authors). Researchers will attempt to improve upon the current software technology by adding new features that leverage advances in...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A120370
Grant
Peer Assisted Writing Strategies (PAWS)
While both reading and writing are necessary for success in school and the workplace, the vast majority of research and intervention development has focused on reading skills. Most of this research suggests that early intervention is important to improving reading achievement. However, less is known about writing, and fewer interventions have been developed to help students learn to write. Still, research in writing that has been completed to date suggests that early intervention may be imp...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A140701
Grant
Robust Instruction of Academic Vocabulary for Middle School Students
As evidence by recent reports and test results suggesting that too few students are reading at grade level, problems in adolescent reading seem to be universally acknowledged. Middle school texts contain challenging vocabulary words that are considered to be a major contributor to reading problems, yet there is very little explicit vocabulary instruction in middle school. The purpose of this project is to develop and document the feasibility and promise of an intervention designed to teach a...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A100440
Grant
Enhancing Reading Instruction for Children with Down Syndrome: A Behavioral Phenotypic Approach
Current methods of reading instruction have not been highly effective for children with Down syndrome. The purpose of this project is to improve reading outcomes for these children by developing an intervention that incorporates critical components of early reading (e.g., vocabulary, decoding skills, fluency) that have been adapted and modified to support the challenges with working and short-term memory, expressive language, and motivation often exhibited by children with Down syndrome.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R324A110162
Grant
Test of Emergent Writing Skills
Writing is a challenging activity for most school-age children as noted from children's performance on national assessments. Hence, early identification of children who may be at risk for writing difficulties could be just as imperative as the early identification of children at risk for reading difficulties. The purpose of this project is to design, develop, and validate an assessment instrument designed to examine emergent writing in preschool children, with the ultimate goal of producing ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A090622
Grant
Improving a Natural-Language Tutoring System that Engages Students in Deep Reasoning Dialogues about Physics
Recent studies show that U.S. students lag behind students in other developed countries in math and science. Because one-on-one tutoring has been shown to be a highly effective form of instruction, many educators and education policy makers have looked to intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) as a means of providing cost-effective, individualized instruction to students that can improve their conceptual understanding of and problem-solving skills in math and science. However, even though many ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A100163
Grant
Collaborative, Technology-Enhanced Lesson Planning as an Organizational Routine for Continuous, School-Wide Instructional Improvement
The purpose of this project is to develop a suite of electronic tools for creating lesson plans that promote known characteristics of effective instruction, as well as the social practices that support collaborative creation of and reflection on lesson plans. To accompany the tools, researchers will develop a systemic, integrated set of routines rooted in lesson planning aimed at improving
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A090252
Grant
The Iterative Design of Modules to Support Reading Comprehension Instruction
There is a significant knowledge base that the reading community has developed regarding what successful students know about reading, what instructional opportunities are necessary to support the development of successful readers, and what teachers need to know in order to teach reading. However, there is a much less well-established knowledge base informing efforts to translate knowledge about reading into knowledge designed for use by teacher-educators. Furthermore, the preponderance of re...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A080005
Grant
Content-Focused Coaching (SM) for High Quality Reading Instruction
In this project, the research team planned to study a structured coaching program designed to improve reading comprehension instruction in the upper elementary grades. At the time of this study, findings showed that 69 percent of fourth graders scored below a proficient level in reading and 36 percent in the below-basic category. In response, some school districts hired "instructional coaches," but there was no agreed upon definition of coaches, so performance varied widely.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305W060027
Grant
Postdoctoral Training in Reading and Language Research
The program trained three postdoctoral fellows for research careers in educational science with a special emphasis in reading research.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305B050022
Grant
Toward More Meaningful Decisions about Comprehension Instruction
In this project, the researchers proposed to develop standardized lessons using common texts and two major approaches to comprehension instruction. The researchers would then implement the approaches and pilot test their promise for improving education outcomes. In the early 2000s, research suggested that the field needed a deeper understanding of the kind of instructional practices that affect students' comprehension. Two approaches emerged: a strategies approach, in which students are expl...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305G040049
Grant
Lapses In Meta-Cognition During Reading: Understanding Comprehension Failure
In this project, the researchers intended to refine and approve a recently developed theoretical perspective for investigating the experience of "zoning out" while reading, also known as "mind wandering", and study the pedagogical implications of these occurrences. In the early 2000s, there was little research that directly examined the role that such experiences play in reading comprehension and whether any negative consequences mind wandering might lead to could be addressed by some sort o...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H030235
Grant
Word Learning and Comprehension: New Laboratory Approaches and Classroom Studies
In this project, the researchers explored how vocabulary-related instruction in schools might reduce the differences in reading achievement between students who enter school with large vocabularies and those who enter school with substantially smaller vocabularies.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305G020006
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