The New York University (NYU) Predoctoral Interdisciplinary Research Training Program in Education Sciences

In 2008, New York University (NYU) established its Predoctoral Training Program in Education Sciences. Through this 2014 grant, NYU provided doctoral students from three schools (Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; the Wagner School of Public Service; and Faculty of Arts and Science) with the knowledge, expertise, and technical skills to pursue rigorous, cutting-edge, relevant research in both academic and non-academic settings and to produce research that can improve outcomes for prekindergarten through postsecondary students.

Over the course of this grant, NYU recruited and trained 28 fellows for 2- or 4-year positions that yearly include tuition and benefits, stipends, and a small research fund. Fellows participated in an interdisciplinary core curriculum focused on (1) quantitative training in causal inference and data science and (2) developing fellows' content expertise in the program's thematic focal areas: enhancing outcomes beyond test scores and policy influences on and supports for the scale-up of evidence-based interventions. In addition, fellows received additional training through a proseminar, workshops, and mentored research apprenticeships with NYU faculty.

Fellows also engaged in practice or policy internships that involved participation in a mentored policy or practice internship course aimed at teaching fellows how to (a) apply practice, policy, and research skills to one or more area of education science; (b) understand and analyze differentiated sets of roles and processes within education practice or policy organizations; and (c) integrate theory and research with education practice or policy toward new directions for education science. Fellows worked towards those goals during an internship course led by the training program's co-director.