May 2013

AERA is initiating a dissertation fellowship program to build research capacity in using the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Longitudinal Database.   

This new initiative, made possible by a generous grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will permit funding of highly competitive studies proposed by graduate students for their dissertation research. AERA-MET Dissertation Fellows will participate in the professional development activities of the AERA Grants Program supported by the National Science Foundation. An Advisory Committee of MET experts and members of the Governing Board of the AERA Grants Program will serve to select the Fellows and as mentors to awardees.   

The MET database consists of extensive quantitative and qualitative information about teachers and their teaching, students’ learning and academic achievement, and classroom climate. The data consist of extensive video-recorded lessons, assessments of teachers’ pedagogical and content knowledge, and surveys of teachers and principals. In addition, the project includes extensive administrative data on schools, teachers, and students.

AERA expects to issue a call for applications in June and announce the inaugural cohort of fellows in September.  The 2013–2014 cohort will include approximately 8 to 10 doctoral dissertation fellows.  Each fellow will receive a one-year stipend of $20,000 and will be trained in the MET database, participate in a three-day AERA doctoral research conference in the fall in Washington, D.C., and attend a capstone research institute at the AERA Annual Meeting.

“It is critical that researchers be trained and encouraged to analyze the MET database to address education research questions that enhance teaching and learning in our nation’s K–12 classrooms,” said AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine. “This initiative will contribute to new knowledge, and help to build a user community undertaking rigorous research and innovative methodological approaches with this valuable multisite, multimethod longitudinal database.”

Levine and George Wimberly, AERA Director of Professional Development and Social Justice, serve as principal investigators of this initiative; Brian Rowan (University of Michigan), a MET principal investigator, is serving as special advisor to the project. The MET Longitudinal Database is available at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research.