IES Blog

Since 2004, IES has been preparing researchers to conduct high-quality, rigorous education and special education research through training grant programs. This roughly $281 million investment has helped change universities and departments across the nation and supported the training of over 200 students interested in beginning doctoral programs, nearly 1000 doctoral students, over 280 postdoctoral fellows, and hundreds of practicing researchers at universities, research firms, state and local agencies, and other organizations.

Over the months to come, we will be spotlighting these IES training programs and those who have participated in them. This blog series will include interviews, updates, and program descriptions as we learn more about the research, innovations, and careers of IES training program participants.

Join us as we celebrate the possibilities created by the following IES training programs:

• Predoctoral Interdisciplinary Research Training – first awarded in FY 2004 and supported by NCER
• Postdoctoral Research Training – first awarded in FY 2005 and supported by NCER
• Postdoctoral Research Training Program in Special Education and Early Intervention – first awarded in FY 2008 and supported by NCSER
• Methods Training for Education Research – grew out of unsolicited grants that focused on training (funded in FY 2008), leading to specific competition first awarded in FY 2013 and supported by NCER 
• Early Career Development and Mentoring in Special Education – first awarded in FY 2013 and supported by NCSER
• Pathways to the Education Sciences – first awarded in FY 2016 and supported by NCER
• Methods Training for Special Education Research – first awarded in FY 2016 and supported by NCSER

For more information about the NCER training programs, contact Dr. Katina Stapleton, and for information about NCSER training programs, contact Dr. Katie Taylor.

This blog was written by Dr. Meredith Larson, program officer for NCER Postdoctoral Research Training grants, and is the first in an ongoing series: Spotlight on IES Training Programs.

This week is American Education Week, a time in which we celebrate public education and educators. The National Center for Special Education Research supports educators and service providers of learners with and at risk for disabilities through funding rigorous research in this area. The NCSER grant program Educators and School-Based Service Providers strives to improve outcomes for students with or at risk for disabilities by finding effective strategies for pre-service teacher preparation and in-service teacher professional development to close the research-to-practice gap.

NCSER awarded three new research grants in FY 2020 through the Educators and School-Based Service Providers program:

Addressing Emergency Certification in Rural Education Settings (Project ACRES)

The purpose of this project is to develop and test a professional development program for emergency certified special educators in rural school districts. There is a nationwide shortage of special educators and this shortage tends to be greater in rural locations. Emergency certification exists to fill the gap by providing provisional licensure to educators while they work towards formal certification. Novice special educators frequently rank behavior management as a top concern, and this area is likely an even greater challenge for teachers with emergency credentials. Kimber Wilkerson and her colleagues will develop a professional development program and test its promise for improving emergency certified special educators’ behavior management skills, self-efficacy, and likelihood of remaining in the field. They will also examine the promise of the program for improving students’ behavior outcomes.

Build the FRaME: Using Feedback, Reflection, and Multimedia to Teach Evidence-Based Practices for Effective Classroom Management

In this study researchers will develop and test a multimedia, multicomponent instructional approach to be used within teacher preparation programs. Teachers nationwide report feeling underprepared to manage classrooms that include students with disabilities and students who exhibit challenging behavior. Michael Kennedy and his team are designing an instructional approach, FRaME, that will improve teacher candidate knowledge and implementation of evidence-based classroom management practices and the engagement and achievement of K-12 learners with disabilities.  

Developing an Instructional Leader Adaptive Intervention Model (AIM) for Supporting Teachers as They Integrate Evidence-Based Adolescent Literacy Practices School-Wide (Project AIM)

This project will develop and test a comprehensive intervention model that includes adaptive, multistage coaching for middle school teachers delivering Tier 1 evidence-based literacy instruction and professional development for school-based coaches. While evidence-based literacy practices have the potential to impact reading outcomes for students with disabilities, teachers do not always implement these practices with consistency or fidelity. Jade Wexler and her team will develop this model and examine its promise for improving teachers’ knowledge of evidence-based literacy practices and students’ reading outcomes. They will also examine the program’s sustainability.  

The ultimate goal of IES is to improve opportunities and outcomes for all learners. Research on professional development and teacher preparation is one way to support the provision of high-quality education for all students within the public education system, including those with or at risk for disabilities.

This blog was authored by Alice Bravo (University of Washington), IES intern through the Virtual Student Federal Service. For more information about NCSER’s Educators and School-Based Service Providers program, contact Dr. Katie Taylor.

Many programs across the Federal government, such as the ED/IES Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and the IES Research Grants programs, fund projects to develop and evaluate new forms of education technology and interventions that can be implemented to support instruction and learning at schools and for remote learning. More than 150 of these technologies were demoed in January 2020 at the ED Games Expo, a showcase for learning games and technologies developed with support from IES and more than 30 other Federal programs.

Since the global outbreak of COVID19 and the closure of schools across the United States and the world, a group of government-supported developers and researchers responded to provide resources to educators, students, and families to facilitate remote learning. More than 50 developers and researchers offered 88 learning games and technologies at no cost through the end of the school year for use in distance learning settings with internet access (see this blog for the list). In addition, many of the developers and researchers provided technical assistance directly to individual teachers to support implementation at a distance, and many created new materials and worked to refine and adapt their products to optimize usability and feasibility for fully remote use. More than a million students and thousands of educators used these learning technologies during the spring.

In April and May 2020, more than 70 developers and researchers partnered to produce and participate in a series of free day-long virtual events, which were called “unconferences.” The events featured presentations on innovative models and approaches to teaching and learning remotely and provided an in-depth look at the learning games and technologies created by the presenters. More than 25,000 educators attended these virtual events in real-time, hundreds asked questions and made comments through chats during the events, and many thousands more have accessed these videos after the events. See this blog for the list of archived videos.

A New Resource: Guides to Education Technologies that are Ready Now

As schools begin re-opening for the new school year, a group of 70 developers and researchers have collaborated to produce a new series of Guides to Education Technologies. The guides present information on government-supported education technology products that are ready now for in-class and remote learning. All the resources are web-based and can be used on either computers, tablets, or personal devices. The resources in the guides include a mix of no-cost products as well as ones that are fee-based.  

With awards from government programs, all of the resources were developed through an iterative process with feedback from teachers and students, and most were evaluated through small pilot studies to measure the promise of the technologies to support improvements in student learning and relevant educational outcomes. All the products were used and demonstrated to be feasible for use in remote settings in the spring after the onset of the pandemic.

The guides present resources appropriate for young children through postsecondary students in education and special education, for English learners, and for teachers in education and special education across a wide range of educational topics. Many of the technologies personalize learning by adjusting content to students as they go and present information to educators to inform instruction.

The Guides focus on the following areas and can be accessed below:

• Early Learning
• Mathematics
• Science and Engineering
• Social Studies
• Special Education

Stay tuned to the Inside IES Blog for more information and resources about the response to the COVID-19 in education.

Edward Metz (Edward.Metz@ed.gov) is a research scientist and the program manager for the Small Business Innovation Research Program at the US Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.

In 2020, as part of a wider IES investment in resources around cost, IES funded the Cost Analysis in Practice (CAP) Project, a 3-year initiative to support researchers and practitioners who are planning or conducting a cost analysis of educational programs and practices. The CAP Project Help Desk provides free on-demand tools, guidance, and technical assistance, such as support with a cost analysis plan for a grant proposal. After inquiries are submitted to the Help Desk, a member of the CAP Project Team reaches out within two business days. Below is a list of resources that you can access to get more information about cost analysis.

STAGES FOR CONDUCTING A COST ANALYSIS

CAP Project Resources

Cost Analysis Standards and Guidelines 1.0: Practical guidelines for designing and executing cost analyses of educational programs.

IES 2021 RFAs Cost Analysis Requirements: Chart summarizing the CAP Project’s interpretation of the IES 2021 RFAs cost analysis requirements.

Cost Analysis Plan Checklist: Checklist for comprehensive cost analysis plans of educational programs and interventions.

Introduction to Cost Analysis: Video (17 mins).

General Cost Analysis Resources

The Critical Importance of Costs for Education Decisions: Background on cost analysis methods and applications.

Cost Analysis: A Starter Kit: An introduction to cost analysis concepts and steps.

CostOut®: Free IES-funded software to facilitate calculation of costs once you have your ingredients list, includes database of prices.

DecisionMaker®: Free software to facilitate evidence-based decision- making using a cost-utility framework.

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Early Reading Programs: A Demonstration With Recommendations for Future Research: Open access journal article.

*More resources available here.

The content for this blog has been adapted from the Cost Analysis in Practice Project informational flyer (CAP Project, 2020) provided by the CAP Project Team. To contact the CAP Help Desk for assistance, please go to https://capproject.org/. You can also find them on Twitter @The_CAP_Project.

Three IES-funded investigators were presented with awards from the Society for Prevention Research (SPR) last week. We recognize and applaud these investigators (pictured above from left to right) Elizabeth Stormshak, Dorothy Espelage, and Patrick Tolan.

Dr. Elizabeth Stormshak, Philip H. Knight Chair and Department Head for Counseling Psychology and Human Services at University of Oregon, received the Translational Science Award from SPR. This award is given to an individual or a team of individuals in recognition for contributions to the field of prevention science through translational research. Dr. Stormshak’s research focuses on understanding risk factors in early and middle childhood associated with the development of problem behavior in late adolescence, including substance use and delinquency. She also studies the process of disseminating evidence-based interventions into real world community settings. She has been the Principal Investigator on multiple IES grants, including a 2018 NCSER-funded project to examine the long-term efficacy of the Kindergarten Family Check-Up (FCU), a school-based, family-centered intervention intended to prevent student social and behavioral problems. This grant is a follow-up and extension to her recently completed randomized controlled trial of Kindergarten FCU, funded by NCER, which found positive impacts on student behavior and academic outcomes during and up to 3 years after the transition to kindergarten. The primary aims of the newer grant are to determine the long-term impact of receiving the original kindergarten intervention and the effects of a middle school booster session of FCU on students' behavior and academic outcomes. Dr. Stormshak is also the director of a NCSER-funded postdoctoral training program focused on the prevention of school-based social and behavioral problems.

Dr. Dorothy Espelage, William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, received SPR’s Prevention Science Award. This award is given for the application of scientific methods to develop and test prevention strategies. Dr. Espelage is a leading expert on school safety and has led multiple research studies on school-based violence and bullying. She has been involved in several IES grants. Most recently, she is serving as the Principal Investigator of a 2019 NCSER-funded project to develop and test a professional development program aimed at enhancing elementary school teachers' knowledge and skills for identifying, mitigating, and preventing bullying among students with and without disabilities. Dr. Espelage also led an exploratory study funded by NCER to better understand how teacher practices influence elementary school students’ interpersonal relationships in the classroom and related behavioral outcomes. 

Dr. Patrick H. Tolan, Charles S. Robb Professor of Education at the University of Virginia in the Curry School of Education and in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences in the School of Medicine, and Director Emeritus of the YouthNex Center in the UVA Center to Promote Effective Youth Development, received the Advances in Culture and Diversity in Prevention Science Award as one of three founding members of the Boys of Color Collaborative. This award is given for contributions to the field of prevention science in the area of community and culture. Dr. Tolan’s research career spans 34 years with a focus on program evaluation for promoting positive youth development and preventing youth violence. Dr. Tolan is currently the Principal Investigator of a 2019 Follow-Up study of an IES efficacy study of the integration of two prevention programs, Good Behavior Game and My Teaching Partner (GBG+MTP), for teachers who have recently entered the teaching profession.

Congratulations to the award recipients!

This blog was co-authored by Jackie Buckley (NCSER), Katie Taylor (NCSER), Emily Doolittle (NCER), and Amy Sussman (NCSER).