A central issue in nonexperimental studies is the identification of comparable individuals (e.g. students) to remove selection bias. One such increasingly common method to identify comparable individuals and address selection bias is the propensity score (PS). PS methods rely on a model of the treatment assignment to identify comparable…

This project represents the beginning of a partnership between the State of Michigan and researchers at the University of Michigan and Michigan State Michigan. The partnership is formalized as the Michigan Consortium for Educational Research (MCER). The goal of MCER is to engage key stakeholders and experts in high quality education research for…

The current study is the second in a series of multi-site, multi-year randomized control trials designed to test the efficacy of a fully developed intervention, Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR), with adolescent readers. In year 1, the research questions were: (1) Does CSR improve reading comprehension for adolescent readers attending…

This work has a three-fold purpose. The first is to set out the rationale for an alternative approach for assessing the generalizability of research findings. (It is related to but not equivalent to the CE method.) The second is to formalize this approach through a quantitative model. The third is to apply the approach to the results of the…

The purpose of this proposal is to examine whether variability in the quality of teachers' interactions (Emotional Support, Classroom Organization, Instructional Support) with students is systematically related to the children's development. In other words, the authors examine whether the amount that teachers vary over the course of a day is a…

This study is part of a larger project that will test the effectiveness of the College Ambition Program intervention model beginning with two schools experimental schools and two control schools. The study will evaluate the effectiveness of the overall intervention, as well as each of the four specific programmatic components. Data will be…

Following a cohort of students from fall of kindergarten to spring of first grade, the authors investigated whether the general cluster profiles identified in Burrow et al.'s (2010) study remained consistent over time. If cluster profiles in the fall of kindergarten held, their goal was to investigate the differences between clusters in terms of…

The long-term goal of this program of research is to clarify how teachers may influence features of peer networks that, in turn, may affect students' perceptions of social support, achievement-related beliefs and academic achievement. As a first step in this process, in this study the authors focus on identifying teaching practices that are…

This study contributes to the literature clarifying teaching practices in elementary classrooms that promote students' social relatedness. The focus on teaching practices reflects the need to understand malleable elements of the classroom, which can then be targeted for professional development. Specifically, this study examines whether children…

The natural-language tutorial dialogue system that the authors are developing will allow them to focus on the nature of interactivity during tutoring as a malleable factor. Specifically, it will serve as a research platform for studies that manipulate the frequency and types of verbal alignment processes that take place during tutoring, such as…

This presentation explains and illustrates how computer-based innovative test tasks are designed in a multi-semiotic environment to effectively and comprehensibly convey meaning to students, especially English language learners (ELLs), students with learning disabilities (LDs), selected other students with disabilities, and non-identified native…

Using data from an urban public pre-k program, the authors add to and extend the emerging evidence base of the effects of public prekindergarten programs on child school readiness. They also use data collected in treatment classrooms to examine associations between teacher characteristics, fidelity-to-curricula, dosage and child outcomes. Their…

The goal of the current study was to develop and validate a self-report questionnaire of preschool teachers' attitudes and beliefs toward science. In preparation for the current study, the research team developed the Preschool Teachers' Attitudes and Beliefs toward Science Questionnaire (P-TABS). The sample consists of 507 teachers: 98% female,…

The authors present work towards automatically assessing data collection behaviors as middle school students engage in inquiry within a physics microworld. In this study, the authors used machine learned models that can detect when students test their articulated hypotheses, design controlled experiments, and engage in planning behaviors using…

With funding from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the Virtual Performance Assessment project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education is developing and studying the feasibility of immersive virtual performance assessments (VPAs) to assess scientific inquiry of middle school students as a standardized component of an accountability…