Project Activities
Research plan
Design
- How did the Centers define capacity building in their theories of action?
- How did the Centers assess the needs of their constituents and develop work plans to address those needs?
Implementation
- What strategies did the Centers employ to achieve their outcomes?
- To what extent and how did the Centers collaborate with each other?
- What challenges did the Centers face and how did they respond?
Outcomes
- Did the Centers achieve their expected capacity-building outcomes and how did they know?
- What strategies were perceived to be most effective and why?
Structured Abstract
Research design and methods
All 22 Centers were included in the sample. Data on the Centers' technical assistance design, implementation, and outcomes were collected over three years (from 2015 to 2017), primarily through: (1) the Centers' work plans and technical assistance activity data; (2) interviews with staff from each Center; (3) interviews with technical assistance recipients; (4) surveys of Center staff; and (5) surveys of technical assistance recipients. This approach yielded rich and diverse data that were analyzed and summarized using qualitative research methods and simple quantitative tabulations.
Key outcomes
- States that received technical assistance reported improvements in their capacity, particularly related to building knowledge and skills.
- Centers shared similar approaches to the design and implementation of their work. Common principles of capacity-building included fostering ownership, long-term change, and organizational process changes. Common strategies to implement these principles included thought partnering, cross-state sharing, and modeling new practices.
- Centers and states considered multiple forms of assistance to be instrumental to building capacity, including support for gathering stakeholder input on policy, strategies for navigating transitions in state leadership, and various products and tools.
- Centers and states pointed to a few areas for program improvement, including clarifying the role of the Centers and expected outcomes related to their work with local education agencies.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Products and publications
The final report, titled National Evaluation of the Comprehensive Centers Program Final Report, was released in October 2019.
A restricted-use file containing de-identified data is available for the purposes of replicating study findings and secondary analysis.
Questions about this project?
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