Multidisciplinary Program in Educational Sciences

Northwestern University's Multidisciplinary Program in Education Sciences (MPES), originally funded by IES in 2004, is designed to provide doctoral students from a variety of disciplines (including economics, human development, learning sciences, psychology, sociology, and statistics) with the knowledge, expertise, and technical skills to conduct rigorous empirical research in education policy and student learning in collaboration with education agencies.

Over the course of the 5-year grant, Northwestern will recruit 3 cohort of fellows for a total of 22 doctoral students. Each recruit will receive 3-year training fellowships that include annual tuition and benefits, stipends, and a small research/travel fund.

The training program includes four major goals: (1) to provide a unified multidisciplinary program of coursework on the links among education policy, cognition and student learning, human development, and diversity and inclusion; (2) to ensure that fellows receive training in rigorous causally focused research methods through coursework, (3) to foster research collaborations in education policy and learning among faculty and fellows, and (4) to ensure that fellows are grounded in education policy and practice. Towards these goals, the program will augment fellows' strong foundations in their home disciplines coordinated curriculum, a 2-year research apprenticeship, a 1-year policy-oriented practice apprenticeship, a proseminar, and a series of intensive workshops that offer training on topics of particular relevance, such as new statistical techniques or the open science movement. Through the training, fellows will develop the theoretical and methodological skills needed engage in education research and to present their research to a variety of audiences, including practitioners and the broader public.

The total projected costs of the training program are $6.4 million. In addition to the grant from IES, Northwestern will contribute approximately $1.9 in cost-sharing.