This study examines the structuring of university-community research partnerships that facilitate theoretically grounded research while also generating findings that community partners find actionable. We analyze one partnership that positions university-based researchers as members of a team working to create, maintain, and use a longitudinal…

This article investigates the extent to which researchers are currently engaged in a shared research program that offers systematic evidence of the classroom impact of organized venues (preservice as well as inservice) for teacher professional learning. The article stems from concern about policies rooted in suspicion that teacher education is…

This article introduces novel sensitivity-analysis procedures for investigating and reducing the bias that mischievous responders (i.e., youths who provide extreme, and potentially untruthful, responses to multiple questions) often introduce in adolescent disparity estimates based on data from self-administered questionnaires (SAQs). Mischievous…

Philanthropic involvement in education politics has become bolder and more visible. Have foundations changed funding strategies to enhance their political influence? Using data from 2000, 2005, and 2010, we investigate giving patterns among the 15 largest education foundations. Our analyses show growing support for national-level advocacy…

In this study, we examined how the relationships between one observation protocol, the Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observation (PLATO), and value-added measures shift when different tests are used to assess student achievement. Using data from the Measures of Effective Teaching Project, we found that PLATO was more strongly related to the…

Despite increased attention to methodological rigor in education research, the field has focused heavily on experimental design and not on the merit of replicating important results. The present study analyzed the complete publication history of the current top 100 education journals ranked by 5-year impact factor and found that only 0.13% of…

This article reports on the pioneering use in education of Discrete Choice Experiments (DCEs) to assess teachers' decisions regarding deployment of rich tasks. The incorporation of this quantitative method into what is usually considered the domain of qualitative researchers is an innovative feature of this study. The DCEs enabled rigorous,…

Experimental and quasi-experimental designs are used in educational research to establish causality and develop effective practices. These research designs rely on a counterfactual model that, in simple form, calls for a comparison between a treatment group and a control group. Developers of educational practices often assume that the population…

Mathematics and science course graduation requirement (CGR) increases in the 1980s and 1990s might have had both intended and unintended consequences. Using logistic regression with Census and American Community Survey (ACS) data (n = 2,892,444), we modeled CGR exposure on (a) high school dropout, (b) beginning college, and (c) obtaining any…

Rubrics for assessing student performance are often seen as providing rich information about complex skills. Despite their widespread usage, however, little empirical research has focused on whether it is possible for rubrics to validly meet their intended purposes. The authors examine a rubric used to assess students' writing in a…

This article sheds light on the availability and characteristics of international scholarship programs that are sponsored by national and federal governments worldwide and that are intended to promote student mobility. Utilizing descriptive and cluster analyses, the article produces a framework for organizing the population of these programs. The…

This study investigated the unique relations between school concentrations of student risk factors and measures of reading, mathematics, and attendance. It used an integrated administrative data system to create a combined data set of risks (i.e., birth risks, teen mother, low maternal education, homelessness, maltreatment, and lead exposure) for…

In massive open online courses (MOOCs), low barriers to registration attract large numbers of students with diverse interests and backgrounds, and student use of course content is asynchronous and unconstrained. The authors argue that MOOC data are not only plentiful and different in kind but require reconceptualization--new educational variables…

This article examines whether exposure to the arts has an effect on the ability of students to engage in critical thinking. We conduct a randomized controlled trial involving 3,811 students who were assigned by lottery to participate in a School Visit Program at the newly opened Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Students who participated in…

Forty-two states and the District of Columbia have recently received waivers to the school accountability requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). As the prospects for reauthorizing the Act in the near term are dim, these new accountability systems will be law for at least several years. Drawing on a four-part framework from the…