This three-year methods training grant will increase the number of education scholars with expertise in conceptualizing, designing, and executing implementation research studies. By establishing a Research Institute for Implementation Science in Education, the training team will provide training and mentorship to build a network of implementation scientists devoted to helping education research become accessible to and used by the teachers, principals, and other administrators the research is intended to aid.

The training team of 7 core faculty and 18 other support faculty will train 12 fellows per year in a 24-month series of learning activities focused on various aspects of implementation science. A total of 24 faculty in education research positions at universities will participate as training fellows in this project. The initial training activities will take place as a 4 1/2-day in-person training in May at the University of Washington. The in-person training will be followed up by ongoing individualized mentoring from core training faculty, collaborative webinars that will include the training fellows and their community partners, and local mentor support in general research skills.

The research team will analyze quantitative survey data from fellows and training faculty descriptively (i.e., counts, means, etc.), which will likely be the limit of quantitative analysis, given the small sample size. Additional data from surveys and from accounts fellows provide about their work with local schools will provide helpful insights into the impact of the training but will not be formally analyzed using qualitative approaches. The team will complete a cost analysis via activity-based costing to determine the total cost of the training program, cost per training component, and cost per fellow.

Project Website: https://smartcenter.uw.edu/programs-services/riise/