Interdisciplinary Training Program for Predoctoral Research in the Education Sciences

In 2005, the University of Wisconsin, Madison established the Interdisciplinary Training Program in the Education Sciences (ITP). Through this 2015 grant, ITP continued to train doctoral students in social science disciplines and education and to equip them with the analytic skills needed to assess the impacts of key policies and programs relevant to policymakers and practitioners at the federal, state, and local levels. ITP was housed within the Wisconsin Center for Education and included faculty and students from eight participating departments (sociology, economics, political science, psychology, educational psychology, educational policy studies, education leadership & policy analysis, and social welfare).

Over the course of the grant, the University of Wisconsin, Madison offered doctoral students 2-year fellowships (for those who entered during their dissertation phase) or 5-year fellowships (for those who were first-or second-year graduate students). The 5-year fellows received 3 years of funding from IES and 2 years of funding from the university. The 2-year fellows received 2 years of funding from IES. All ITP fellowships, regardless of fellowship length, received tuition and benefits, $30,000 stipends, and a small research fund.

Fellows participated in an interdisciplinary core curriculum consisting of coursework in education policy, experimental design, research methods, measurement, and statistics.

Fellows received training in the process of working with practitioners and policymakers in using rigorous research evidence to inform educational decision-making (translational research). Fellows also participated in semester-long research-to-practice internships on large-scale research studies that explored causal questions of relevance to education policy or practice. The training program included an ongoing interdisciplinary seminar in the education sciences and semi-annual workshops with practitioners and policymakers.

The total costs of the training program were approximately $5.98 million. In addition to the approximately $4 million grant from IES, the University of Wisconsin, Madison contributed approximately $411,000 to cost-share fellows' stipends and tuition during the award and nearly $1.6 million to provide up to 2 additional years of support for each 5-year fellow.