IES Blog

Institute of Education Sciences

Taking a pause…

In a first for ERIC, the supply of education research content the program aspires to index is regularly exceeding its capacity to do so. For the past 15 years, ERIC has consistently indexed 4,000 records a month. This pace has allowed us to index all approved sources without significant delays. However, over the past two years, the volume of content published in our approved sources has doubled. This has resulted in a backlog of publishable content and, as a result, ERIC cannot index new work in a timely fashion.

As part of our periodic collection analyses, we have been investigating potential causes of this backlog. We have found that several journals are publishing far more content than when they were originally selected to be included in ERIC. For example, one journal was publishing fewer than 20 articles per year when approved, but now is publishing over 850 per year. This is close to a 5000% increase in production.

An increased volume of published work in the education sciences—as a whole—is a good thing. However, when an individual journal dramatically increases the number of articles it publishes, it is noteworthy. In those instances, ERIC wants to ensure that the journal is still adhering to the standards and criteria it met when originally included in the index, including rigorously applying the peer-review process, if applicable, and maintaining its original aim and scope. Both are important to ensuring that work contained in ERIC is of high quality and that a wide range of key topics in education can be indexed.

ERIC’s Selection Policy already requires an ongoing review of currently indexed sources, including identifying sources that may no longer meet the Policy’s standard and criteria. As part of that review, ERIC will now identify journals that have published over twice as many articles from the year it was accepted and flag them for further review. As part of that review, ERIC will assess whether the increase is temporary and associated with a unique event, like a special issue, or if the increase reflects an ongoing trend. If the review indicates the increase is persistent, the ERIC team will recommend that indexing of that journal be paused. If a pause is approved, ERIC will stop indexing subsequent issues for a two-year period. The journal will also be removed from ERIC’s Journals List, because this list only contains actively indexed journals.

After the two-year pause, ERIC will re-review the journal. If ERIC reinstates the journal, ERIC will notify the journal and will index any content published during the two-year pause. If the journal is not reinstated, ERIC will not index any issues published during the pause.

This decision has led to a few questions:

  • Why can’t ERIC index everything? ERIC is funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences and has limited resources. It must prioritize indexing the highest quality education research, include content for all topic areas, and can only index a set number of records per month.
  • What is the concern with the increased volume? Increased volume may signal that the journal has changed scope to accommodate a broader set of articles or that quality assurance processes have been affected in a rush-to-publish environment. Particularly among journals that were considered to be peer reviewed when originally accepted into ERIC, the publication of articles shortly after submission may signal a substantive change in a journal’s quality assurance process such that they no longer meet the criteria needed to receive that designation. There is also a concern that if a journal greatly produces more records than estimated, the collection will get skewed in a way which would favor one topic area over another.
  • How will ERIC identify the journals to pause? As part of the source selection process, ERIC will monitor two years of current publishing and compare the number of articles published to the number published during the year the journal was selected for ERIC.
  • Why is the pause for two years? The ERIC Selection Policy says that sources may be reviewed after 2 years (24 months). To be consistent with this policy, we will automatically review paused sources after this same time frame.
  • How will I know if my journal is paused? ERIC will email the journal representatives to inform them of this decision in the coming weeks.
  • Can my journal appeal the decision to be paused? Journals may not appeal the decision to pause indexing. However, if at the end of the pause period the journal is not automatically reinstated, journals may apply for re-review 24 months later.
  • What is ERIC looking for in the automatic review at the end of the pause period? ERIC will conduct a full review of the journal and consider the two years of published content against the criteria set forth in the ERIC Selection Policy.
  • Can authors submit their article published in a “paused” journal via online submission during this period? No, authors must wait for a re-review of the journal to be conducted after the two-year pause. If the journal is selected again, the articles from the paused issues will be indexed in ERIC.

Intervention Strategies on Dropout Prevention and College and Career Readiness for Students with Disabilities: An Interview with Dr. Kern

In honor of Career and Technical Education (CTE) Month, we asked principal investigator Dr. Lee Kern how her intervention research reduces dropouts and prepares students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) for college and career readiness (CCR). The purpose of her current IES project is to develop and pilot test an intervention, Supported College and Career Readiness (SCCR), that augments typical school-based college and career readiness activities for students at or at risk for EBD.

What motivated you to conduct this research?

Headshot of Lee Kern

Given the high dropout rate among students with EBD, I am interested in strategies that keep them in school. Because post-graduation experiences serve as important indicators of positive educational outcomes, I want to establish a stronger connection between school and life after school to ensure that students are fully prepared. My co-PIs, Jennifer Freeman and Chris Liang, were motivated to collaborate on the current research project as well because of their unique focus on different aspects of CCR, allowing us to address multiple dimensions in the development of our intervention.

Can you provide us with an update on the project? What work have you completed to date on the development of the SCCR program?

We recognized and addressed a gap in the college and career readiness literature with this group of students. During the first 2 years of the project, we completed two literature reviews and two conceptual papers, which are in press, and we are in the process of completing a third literature review. Our completed literature reviews indicated (a) limited attention to CCR for individuals with emotional and behavioral problems, (b) lack of defined components of CCR interventions, (c) the need to evaluate the effectiveness of CCR interventions with students of color, and (d) aspects of CCR interventions that might be important for individuals with diverse sexual identities. These papers helped us develop our multi-component CCR intervention for students with or at risk for EBD.

The development phase was vital to creating our multi-component program. Schools practice different approaches to college and career preparation, so we needed to create a flexible program that could fit the many permutations in course scheduling, career interest assessments, career exposure activities, and other factors. Receiving teacher and student feedback on the program during the second year of the project was helpful and appreciated as we refined SCCR. We initiated a randomized controlled trial and ran the study in four schools this academic year. We will expand the research into four additional schools in the 2023-24 academic year.

What other types of research are needed to move forward in the field of CTE for students with or at risk for EBD?

Although we know that students, especially those with or at risk for EBD, need more preparedness for college or their future careers, research must specify intervention components that result in improved outcomes in these areas. Also, it must determine whether the interventions are effective across diverse groups of students and ascertain adaptations that address the needs of all students. Existing and ongoing research must be conducted to better assess student skills. Identifying assessments directly linked to critical and effective interventions that practitioners can implement will be important for future progress.

NCSER looks forward to learning the results of the pilot study to better understand the promise of the SCCR program for improving the college and career readiness of students with or at risk for EBD. For more highlights on the CTE-related work that IES is supporting, please check out our IES CTE page

Dr. Kern is a professor and the director of the Center for Promoting Research to Practice at Lehigh University. She has more than 30 years of experience in special education, mental health, and behavior intervention for students with EBD.

This CTE blog post was produced by Alysa Conway, NCSER student volunteer and University of Maryland, College Park graduate student. Akilah Nelson is the program officer for NCSER’s Career and Technical Education grants.

 

 

Self-Affirmation as Resistance to Negative Stereotypes of Black and Latino Students

As part of our 20th anniversary celebration and in recognition of Black History Month, we asked Dr. Jason Snipes, Director of Applied Research for REL-West at WestEd, to discuss his inspiration for his IES-funded replication study. The purpose of the study is to test the potential of self-affirmation interventions to counteract the harmful effects of negative racial stereotypes on the academic, disciplinary, and psychosocial outcomes of 7th grade Black and Latino students.

Head shot of Dr. Jason SnipeWhat motivates your research on the effects of self-affirmation interventions on Black and Latino student outcomes?

My mother was a civil rights activist, and I was raised with a clear sense of my history as a Black person and the importance of making a contribution worthy of those that preceded me. Her example inspired me to pursue a career in research on education and youth development and to focus on finding, testing, and understanding strategies for improving outcomes for the Black, Latino, and other students systematically underserved by our education system.

My specific interest in stereotype threat and self-affirmation research stems in part from my own education experiences. I still remember how—despite being in the gifted and talented program at my elementary school—every mistake I made, every question I asked, every idea I expressed was greeted with the snickers and whispers of my peers crudely expressing their doubts about my intelligence. I remember my success slipping away, and before I knew it, being in 8th grade remedial math—failing. My father essentially saved my life. He somehow taught me to truly believe that I could accomplish anything I wanted to. This is not a solution to systemic racism. Still, his support for changing my beliefs about myself, combined with going to a new high school, completely changed my academic trajectory.

I again felt the weight and pressure of low expectations in graduate school, in the subtle and not-so-subtle ways my White professors expressed their doubts about my ability to succeed in a rigorous PhD program.

So, later in my career, when I learned about stereotype threat and self-affirmation, I saw a bit of myself and my life experiences. I saw something else that I found unusual: an intervention with significant effects, even when tested in rigorous randomized trials. I wanted to know more about where, how, and under what circumstances it could be effectively used support Black and Brown children.

What is stereotype threat and how might it impact Black students?

Among Black students, stereotype threat is the fear of confirming negative racial stereotypes about their academic performance and their underlying intelligence. It can be one of the many persistent and pervasive psychological stressors that Black people encounter on a daily basis. Randomized trials show that when prompted to believe a test is an assessment of their intelligence, Black students perform more poorly. The prompt generates physiological and psychological stress responses, reduces available working memory, and results in both fewer questions answered in a given period of time and a lower percentage of correct answers among those given. The same prompt has no effect on White or Asian students. A meta-analysis of 300 studies suggests stereotype threat accounts for a quarter to a third of the Black-White and Latino-White achievement gaps.

How does the self-affirmation intervention you are evaluating address stereotype threat?

The self-affirmation intervention, created by Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson, is designed to respond to stereotype threat. It’s a set of four 15-minute writing exercises administered over the course of a school year. Each exercise provides students with the opportunity to affirm their value by asking them to write about things that are important to them. Experiments with college and middle school students show that self-affirmation improves a variety of academic outcomes for Black students, and that that these effects persist and grow over time.

Our study goes beyond prior research to provide new evidence about the impact of self-affirmation on Black and Latinx students in schools with different demographic compositions and the extent to which its effects generalize across a nationally representative sample of schools. Some studies suggest that self-affirmations effects are smaller in schools with higher concentrations of Black and/or Latino students. We plan to systematically explore this and other questions about moderators. Our findings will have implications for the settings in which self-affirmation ought to be scaled and implemented and how it might be used as a complement to other available supports to bolster the success of Black and Latinx students.

That stereotype threat appears to account for a quarter of observed racial achievement gaps, and that self-affirmation ameliorates this effect makes self-affirmation relevant to larger discussions of educational equity. Self-affirmation, along with other psychosocial interventions, should be investigated as potential tools for reducing racial disparities in education outcomes. That said, it is important to remember that racial inequity is a feature of the education system and the institutions that surround it, not a function of some sort of “flaw” in the attitudes or psychosocial make up of Black and Brown students themselves. While these approaches may help buffer Black and Latino students against the full consequences of racism, bias, and stereotyping, we should never allow ourselves to be confused. The fundamental problem is not Black and Latino students’ ability to cope with these dynamics, but the presence of these dynamics in and of themselves. Furthermore, psychosocial interventions are not a substitute for high quality instruction or solutions to other systemic problems (for example, de facto segregation) that have powerful negative effects on academic outcomes among Black and Latino students.

Self-affirmation is also relevant to discussions of racial equity in education because the intervention reflects a fundamental concept underlying racial equity: personhood. It offers students a chance to affirm their value as human beings, and this may be one of the mechanisms through which it helps disrupts the destructive cycle of stereotype threat. This simple assertion embodies a core idea underlying the civil rights movement: that racial equity requires recognizing and treating Black and Brown people as fully human.   

Your current IES study aims to replicate prior research on self-affirmation. Why is replication important?

Too often, I have seen researchers, policy makers, practitioners, and funders make the mistake of misinterpreting results from a single, even rigorously designed, study as answering the question of whether an intervention or strategy works. Reality is more complex. What we can learn from a single study is usually something closer to the extent to which an approach worked in this place (or places) at this time. Under pressure for answers to pressing policy problems, we may rush to scale approaches or interventions with evidence from one or two well designed studies, only to find out that they don’t work at scale, or in a subsequent implementation, and we don’t know why.

It may be better to ask, “To what extent does an approach generate impacts, under what circumstances does it do so, and why?” Systematically replicating initial causal studies, enables researchers to address these questions more effectively. Rather than guessing at post hoc explanations of the patterns we observe, replication systematically tests hypotheses regarding how implementation, context, and other moderators and mediators affect program impacts. Doing so prior to undertaking massive scaling efforts therefore helps reduce the extent to which money, effort, and, perhaps most importantly, public will, are expended on strategies with fundamental limitations. Replication enables us to more systemically study and understand mechanisms of action, improving the extent to which we implement or scale interventions in contexts and situations in which they are likely to be most effective.


This blog was produced by Katina Stapleton (Katina.Stapleton@ed.gov) and Corinne Alfeld (Corinne.Alfeld@ed.gov), NCER Program Officers.

Empowering the Families of Black Autistic Children through Culturally Responsive, Community-Based Interventions

In recognition of the IES 20th anniversary and Black History Month, we interviewed Dr. Jamie Pearson, an assistant professor of special education at North Carolina State University. Jamie is developing and refining a community-based parent-training intervention, FACES (Fostering Advocacy, Communication, Empowerment, and Support), designed to strengthen Black parents' capacity to access and use special education services and improve the communication and behavior outcomes for their autistic children.

How have your background and experiences shaped your scholarship and career in studying diversity, equity, and inclusion in education?Headshot of Jamie Pearson

My early career experiences were as a behavioral interventionist for autistic students in home, school, and community settings. While providing direct support, I noticed that many of the students I supported were white and most came from middle- and upper-class socioeconomic backgrounds. These experiences led me to question whether there were disparities in diagnosis, misdiagnosis, and treatment/service access for children of color, particularly Black autistic children. These early questions were the catalysts for my scholarship.

As a doctoral student, I began exploring Black families’ experiences supporting autistic children. I became very passionate about investigating (a) disparities in the identification of autism and service access for Black autistic students and their families, (b) the implementation and evaluation of culturally responsive family advocacy interventions, and (c) strategies for strengthening partnerships between historically marginalized families and schools. Based on the findings from my early exploratory research, I developed and piloted the FACES intervention.

What advice would you give to emerging scholars from underrepresented, minoritized groups that are pursuing a career in education research?

When I began this work, I distinctly remember a faculty member asking me why it was important to look at the intersections of autism and race/ethnicity. They genuinely didn’t understand. I was passionate about my work, and even though not everyone understood the implications of these disparities at the time, they learned from my early exploratory work. It is important for underrepresented scholars to know that you have a seat at the table! Your knowledge, experiences, and contributions are needed in education research. We need more scholars of color, disabled scholars, and LGBTQIA+ scholars who reflect the populations with whom we conduct educational research and whose diverse perspectives impact how we engage in and interpret education research. My three pieces of advice in a nutshell would be find your passion, follow your passion, and know that you are deserving of a seat at the table. Pull up a chair if you have to!

Tell us about your current IES project focused on FACES. Do you have any updates or preliminary findings you would like to share about supporting Black children with ASD and their families?

The purpose of my IES Early Career project is to develop and test the promise of FACES when delivered by community-based parent educators. So far, two of my doctoral students and I (all Black women) have been the only people to facilitate FACES. To scale the intervention up, we need to design a training for facilitators to know how to implement FACES, train the facilitators, and then test its promise when delivered by facilitators in community-based settings. We are partnering with two community-based organizations who provide parent advocacy and support to achieve these goals.

During phase 1 of this project, we conducted a content analysis of our community partners’ data to better understand the extent to which Black families raising autistic students were seeking support for their child. These findings indicate that Black families are most often seeking specific therapeutic services (such as speech therapy) for their child, followed by school-related support and behavioral support. We then conducted focus groups with community-based providers to better understand their experiences and needs supporting Black families. Findings from these focus groups indicated that community-based providers are serving multiple roles—feeling as though they serve as therapist, teacher, advocate, and more with some families—with limited resources. These findings, combined with emergent themes around racial responsiveness and racial sensitivity, are helping us tailor the train-the-trainer components of the project. For example, we are building a section into our training about the implications of colorblind ideology and how to address facilitator biases. Facilitators will need to complete this training and demonstrate their understanding of the content before they move forward with facilitating the FACES intervention.

What do you see as the greatest research needs to improve the relevance of education research for diverse communities of students and families?

Much of the research around autism disparities has focused on quantifying racial disparities, yet little work has been done to reduce these disparities. Black families raising autistic children need access to parent education and advocacy training to combat the barriers they face in service access and utilization and find spaces where they feel welcome. I strongly believe that community-based parent education sets the foundation for empowering families that have been historically marginalized. We’ve seen FACES families go back to their communities and educate their friends and families about autism, connect them to services, and even create their own support groups. When families have more knowledge about autism and autism services, they feel more empowered. When they feel more empowered, they are better equipped to advocate. This is why it’s critical to engage in this work with historically marginalized families at the community level.

However, families of color still face many systemic barriers, so we still have a lot of work to do with educators and healthcare providers to ensure they are engaging in culturally responsive practices that facilitate effective partnerships with marginalized families. We need both empowered families and culturally responsive providers to effectively address these disparities.

The IES 20th anniversary campaign focuses on the future of IES as well as the most notable IES accomplishments. Follow the campaign on IES social media channels and our website. Join the conversation by using #IESat20 on social media.

This blog was produced by Akilah Nelson, program officer for the National Center for Special Education Research.

How State Education Agencies Can Leverage Their Regional Educational Laboratory to Support Students’ Academic, Social, and Mental Health Needs

(A Dear Colleague Letter sent to Chief State School Officers on February 23, 2023.)

Dear Colleague:

As state and local education agencies leaders reflect upon the successes and challenges of the 2022-2023 school year—and the opportunity that summer 2023 presents to further support students’ academic, social, and mental health needs—I am writing today to encourage you to take full advantage of the services offered by your Regional Educational Laboratory (REL).

The REL Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, supports educators and policymakers at the state and local levels in the use of data and evidence-based practices to improve student outcomes. All REL services are provided free of charge and are designed in partnership with state and local partners to meet their specific needs. Each REL is led by a Director with deep expertise in education policy, practice, and research who can help you navigate how best to leverage REL supports to address your state’s most pressing needs. A list of REL Directors, including their contact information, is attached.

Your REL can support a wide range of state and local initiatives. They include:

  • Analyzing student progress and outcome data (e.g., achievement, chronic absenteeism, graduation rate, English language proficiency) to understand the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Your REL can analyze longitudinal student data provided by the state or district partners to better understand the trajectory of student performance prior to the pandemic, during the pandemic, and today. When disaggregated by student group, school characteristics, or other relevant features, these analyses can support decision-makers in focusing resources, monitoring improvement, and adjusting implementation efforts. RELs Midwest and Mid-Atlantic recently provided similar services for their state and district-level partners.
  • Supporting the identification of existing, or the design of new, evidence-based practices to meet students’ academic, social, and mental health needs. Your REL can support state and local efforts to identify practices that prior evidence suggests can promote learning and development. REL Southeast recently published a review on the effectiveness of early literacy interventions across several domains in response to a request from partners regionwide. When high-quality evidence does not exist, or existing practices are not well-aligned to state or local needs, RELs can support efforts to design and pilot research-based innovations.
  • Coaching state and local education agency staff on the use of data to improve the ongoing implementation of education policies, programs, and practices. Your REL offers coaching and training services for state and local leaders on data-driven approaches to continuous quality improvement. These services are particularly beneficial when a program is relatively new to a state or district and leaders are focused on timely feedback to ensure an evidence-based practice is well-implemented at scale. REL Southwest recently supported the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s (OSDE) rollout of Oklahoma Excel, a data-driven and job-embedded professional development program for educators in participating districts. A 2-part video series provides background on the program, and the supports REL Southwest provided to OSDE staff who administer the program.
  • Evaluating the impact of state or local interventions on important student outcomes. Your REL can support the rigorous evaluation of well-implemented policies, programs, or practices to document those efforts’ impacts on important student outcomes. For example, a 2021 REL Northwest study examined the implementation and impact of full-day kindergarten in Oregon in light of a funding structure shift that incentivized districts to offer the programming. When a rigorous evaluation is not feasible, your REL can advise you on credible, alternative approaches to understanding the outcomes associated with a policy or program.
  • Coaching state or local education agency staff on the use of existing REL tools and resources. Through their work with state and local partners, RELs have developed a wide range of actionable resources designed to support the implementation of evidence-based practices. Your REL can coach state and local education agency staff on how to  customize and use tools developed elsewhere to meet your needs. Examples include REL Appalachia’s Community Math Night Facilitators’ Toolkit and REL Southeast’s Professional Learning Community on Emergent Literacy.
  • Providing expert guidance to senior state or local education agency leaders. Finally, your REL can leverage its network of internal and external experts to offer guidance on data- and evidence-driven approaches to addressing problems of policy and practice. This “Ask-an-Expert” service is available to senior leaders of both state and local education agencies. A recent REL Appalachia “Ask an Expert” response to a Tennessee-based partner shared best practices for administering and using data from Kindergarten readiness screeners.

REL Directors are routinely in contact with senior education agency leadership as part of their on-going work to better understand the kinds of supports that might benefit states in their region. However, if you or senior members of your leadership team have not yet had the opportunity to meet with your REL Director (or have not done so recently), please consider contacting them at your convenience. I am also glad to facilitate that connection at your request.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention the critical relationship between your REL and the Regional Comprehensive Center (RCC) that serves your state. Sponsored by the Department’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, RCCs support state education agencies in their efforts to implement evidence-based policy and practice and realize the goals set in their Consolidated State Plans.

If you have any questions about the REL Program, please do not hesitate to contact me or a senior member of my team.

Sincerely,

Matthew Soldner
Commissioner, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance
Matthew.Soldner@ed.gov 

Note: This blog reflects slight edits to the letter sent to Chief State School Officers. References to an attached brochure and a contact list for REL Program staff have been removed.