Mini Professional Development Courses—AERA 2019 Annual Meeting
 
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Mini Professional Development Course Descriptions

PDC15:              Designing Adequately Powered Cluster Randomized Trials to Detect Main Effects, Moderation, and Mediation
Instructors:       Benjamin Kelcey, University of Cincinnati; Nianbo Dong, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Jessaca K. Spybrook, Western Michigan University; Kyle T. Cox, University of Cincinnati
 
Date:                  Saturday, April 6
Time:                 8 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Room:                601A
Fee:                    $105
 
The purpose of this course is to train researchers and evaluators in how to plan efficient and effective cluster-randomized studies that probe hypotheses concerning main effects, mediation, and moderation. Instructors focus on the conceptual logic and mechanics of multilevel studies and train participants in how to plan cluster-randomized studies with adequate power to detect multilevel mediation, moderation, and main effects. Participants will use the free PowerUp! software programs designed to estimate the statistical power to detect mediation, moderation, and main effects across a wide range of designs. The course will combine lecture with hands-on practice with the free software programs. The target audience includes graduate students, researchers, and evaluators interested in planning and conducting multilevel studies that investigate mediation, moderation, or main effects. Participants should bring a laptop to the session.
PDC16:             Introduction to Infographics and Data Visualization
Instructor:       Dino Sossi, Teachers College, Columbia University
 
Date:                 Saturday, April 6
Time:                8 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Room:               601B
Fee:                   $65
 
This applied course introduces participants to design principles and techniques for effective data visualization focusing on qualitative data. Visualizations graphically depict data to foster communication, improve comprehension, and enhance decision-making. This course will help education researchers at all levels learn to create their own visualizations to communicate complex educational issues. It will also give them the opportunity to begin to learn how to teach design techniques to their own classes.
PDC17:              Support for International Scholars Seeking to Publish in English-Medium Journals
Instructors:      Wayne Journell, University of North Carolina – Greensboro; Fouad S. Abd-El-Khalick, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill; Jinfa Cai, University of Delaware; Gerald Campano, University of Pennsylvania; Mary Jane Curry, University of Rochester; Tsafrir Goldberg, University of Haifa; Amy Stornaiuolo, University of Pennsylvania; Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, University of Pennsylvania; Dana L. Zeidler, University of South Florida
 
Date:                  Saturday, April 6
Time:                 8 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Room:                602A
Fee:                    $65
 
This four-hour mini-course is designed to provide professional development for international scholars who conduct educational research and wish to publish their work in top-tier, English-medium journals based in the United States. Participants will hear from and interact with the editors from the top U.S.-based empirical journals focusing on mathematics education (Journal for Research in Mathematics Education), science education (Journal of Research in Science Teaching), language arts education (Research in the Teaching of English), and social studies education (Theory & Research in Social Education). The editors will share general ideas for success in academic publishing, but they will also identify and address specific issues related to international scholars publishing in English-medium journals, as identified in the literature. Topics that will be covered in the mini-course include (a) general information about publishing in top-tier academic journals; (b) tips to help improve participants’ odds of being successful in the publication process; (c) the unwritten norms of publishing in English-medium, U.S.-based journals; (d) personal experiences of scholars who have been successful in publishing in English-medium journals; and (e) an understanding of editorial decision letters—what they mean and how to respond to them.
PDC18:             Advanced Analysis Using School-Based International Large-Scale Assessment Databases (TIMSS, PIRLS, and PISA)
Instructor:       Eugenio Gonzalez, Educational Testing Service
 
Date:                 Saturday, April 6
Time:                1 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Room:               601A
Fee:                   $105
 
This course covers how to download and prepare the public use data files from TIMSS, PIRLS, and PISA and conduct basic and advanced statistical analysis. It will also cover the statistical complexities and techniques used in these studies and their implications for analysis. It involves a combination of lectures and hands-on exercises. By the end of the course the participant will be able to prepare the data files for advanced statistical analysis and conduct basic and some advanced analysis using customized software provided during the course. Participants need to have with them a laptop computer with Windows and SPSS or SAS installed, and must have knowledge of basic and intermediate statistics. Data files and demonstration software to use the data will be distributed during the course.
PDC19:             Introduction to Latent Transition Analysis in MPlus
Instructor:       Karen L. Nylund-Gibson, University of California – Santa Barbara
 
Date:                 Saturday, April 6
Time:                 1 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Room:                601B
Fee:                    $105
 
This course will provide an introduction to Latent Transition Analysis (LTA), the longitudinal extension of the latent class analysis model. The course will begin with a brief overview of the latent class analysis model and the process of class enumeration, and then will focus mainly on the specification and estimation of the latent transition analysis model. The class will be focused on the five basic model-building steps for the LTA model, including selecting a measurement model, exploring for measurement invariance, higher order effects, and then the inclusion of covariates and distal outcomes. An applied example will be used throughout the course to highlight modeling ideas. Specification and estimation of all models in the Mplus version 8.1 will be demonstrated throughout, and participants will be given electronic access to all course materials.
PDC20:             Social Network Modeling
Instructor:        Tracy Sweet, University of Maryland – College Park
 
Date:                 Saturday, April 6
Time:                1 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Room:               602A
Fee:                   $105
 
This course is for participants interested in learning about social network models and is appropriate for researchers at any stage in their career, students included. Course content includes several short lectures mixed with practice with R code: an introduction to R, an introduction to social network analysis, practice analyzing a single social network in R, review of social network models and introduction to hierarchical network models, and practice fitting social network models to multiple networks in R. Participants will leave the course with an understanding of quantitative methods available for analyzing social networks as well as the current state of model capabilities, R code for analyzing their own networks, and fitting network models.
PDC21:             Advanced Analysis Using Adult International Large-Scale Assessment Databases (PIAAC)
Instructor:       Eugenio Gonzalez, Educational Testing Service
 
Date:                 Sunday, April 7
Time:                8 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Room:               601A
Fee:                   $105
 
This course covers how to download and prepare the public use data files from PIAAC and conduct basic and advanced statistical analysis. PIAAC is the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, which assesses literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving skills in the adult population of over 25 countries. The course will also cover the statistical complexities and techniques used in these studies and their implications for analysis. It involves a combination of lectures and hands-on exercises. By the end of the course, the participant will be able to prepare the data files for advanced statistical analysis and conduct basic and some advanced analysis using customized software provided during the course. Information on how to access the web-based tools will also be presented during the course. Participants need to have with them a laptop computer with Windows and SPSS or SAS installed, and must have knowledge of basic and intermediate statistics. Data files and demonstration software to use the data will be distributed during the course.
PDC22:             Communicating and Sharing Your Research With the World
Instructor:        Jenny Grant Rankin, University of Cambridge
 
Date:                 Sunday, April 7
Time:                8 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Room:               601B
Fee:                   $65
 
This course focuses on how to communicate research to large, diverse audiences. It is appropriate for participants who have researched (or are currently researching) any topic within the education field and who want their findings to reach as many people as possible in order to help as many students as possible. Participants will learn about a variety of opportunities, how to land those opportunities, and strategies to maximize those opportunities to share their work with varied audiences. The course is split into three sections: laying the groundwork (branding, websites, social media, etc.), speaking (TED Talks, conferences, media interviews, NPR/radio, etc.), and writing (book deals, journals, magazines, etc.). Sections involve audience participation, interaction, and hands-on activities to apply concepts to participants’ circumstances. Attendees will also learn about resources available to women and traditionally underrepresented groups so more diverse perspectives are represented in field dialogue. In addressing significant professional development issues (e.g., writing and speaking strategies), this course will encourage more dynamic, memorable research presentations and accessible, widespread communication of education research findings.
PDC23:             Developing Transparent and Reproducible Research With R
Instructors:      Daniel John Anderson, University of Oregon; Joshua Michael Rosenberg, The University of Tennessee – Knoxville
 
Date:                  Sunday, April 7
Time:                 8 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Room:                602A
Fee:                    $105
 
Reproducibility of research findings is critical to the validity of inferences from studies. If an independent evaluator with access to the study data is unable to reproduce the published findings exactly, the trustworthiness of the findings is called into question, as highlighted by several prominent examples (e.g., the Duke crisis; see Peng, 2015). Such issues are also essential in a time in which established findings are being called into question (i.e., concerns about the reproducibility of psychological science findings) because of choices made in the course of a research study.   In this training, we provide an overview of reproducibility and open science, and introduce participants to tools that increase the likelihood of reproducible and transparent workflows. We emphasize tools from the R software environment to weave text with analysis code (e.g., R Markdown), version control to document the entire history of a project, and platforms for sharing analysis workflows publicly. Our target audience is early career scholars as well as researchers at any stage looking for tools to help increase the likelihood of their work being reproducible. The format will include part lecture and part hands-on applied work.
PDC24:             Survey Design and Validation
Instructors:      Katherine Picho, Howard University; Emmanuel Sikali, U.S. Department of Education
 
Date:                  Sunday, April 7
Time:                 8 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Room:                602B
Fee:                    $105
 
This course provides a primer on survey development and the use of factor analysis to validate surveys. The course is intended for educators (including administrators) and researchers at all levels—from novice to more experienced—who are developing, implementing, or contemplating the use of questionnaires for research, program evaluation, or educational purposes. This course expounds on exploratory factor analysis as a crucial tool in the instrument validation process and introduces learners to confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The course includes interactive presentations, small-group activities to practice skills, useful resource materials, and time for discussion with the instructor. Access to SPSS or Stata is required.
PDC25:             Federal Education Policy as a Driver of Assessment Design and Practice (1960 to present)
Instructors:      Daniel Lewis, American College Testing, Inc.; Wes Bruce, Self-Employed
 
Date:                 Monday, April 8
Time:                8 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Room:               601B
Fee:                   $65
 
This courses provides a historical understanding of assessment design and practice in light of decades of federal education accountability policy. The presenters trace national educational policy and initiatives, and the associated effects on assessment design and practice, in interactive discussion with participants, beginning just prior to President Johnson’s original enactment of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which established accountability requirements that persist today, through each presidential administration, to the current Trump administration’s educational policies accompanying its implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). This session will highlight the key federal policies of each presidential administration that resulted in the push for desegregation, equity, and equal access to quality education, world-class standards and states’ mandated adoption of academic content standards, the notion of Adequate Yearly Progress in accountability systems, the rise of criterion-referenced assessments, testing all students on the same content standards, growth models, widespread use of interim and formative assessments, the adoption of common standards (CCSS), adaptive testing, innovative item types, balanced assessment systems, the changing role of the federal government in national and state education policy, and many other topics.
PDC26:            Validity Study Using Differential Item Functioning
Instructor:       Youn-Jeng Choi, The University of Alabama
 
Date:                Monday, April 8
Time:               8 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Room:              602A
Fee:                  $105
 
This course is designed to provide the measurement method for validity study. Differential item functioning was introduced as a new tool to evaluate validity evidence based on internal structure (AERA, APA, & NCME, 2014). The goals of the course are to learn the fundamental concepts and methods of validity analyses using differential item functioning, so that participants can critically evaluate the uses of tests and other educational and psychological assessment procedures. The target audience is graduate students and early career scholars. Knowledge about basic concepts of IRT (e.g., item parameters, item parameter invariance, and ICC), chi-square tests, and logistic regression are preferred but not required. The SAS and IRTLRDIF programs will be used during the computer lab sessions.
PDC27:             Using R Software for Item Response Theory (IRT) Model Calibrations
Instructors:      Ki Matlock Cole, Oklahoma State University; Insu Paek, Florida State University; Taeyoung Kim, University at Buffalo – SUNY
 
Date:                 Monday, April 8
Time:                1 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Room:               601B
Fee:                   $105
 
This interactive training course will introduce the concepts of unidimensional IRT models and provide instruction, demonstration, and hands-on opportunities for using the free R software to estimate commonly used IRT models. Example data sets will be provided for practical applications. This course is for graduate students, practitioners, and researchers interested in advancing their knowledge of IRT and enhancing skills in using R to do IRT analysis. A basic understanding of IRT is highly recommended. Prior knowledge of R is not required. Familiarity with writing syntax may also be helpful for using R but is not essential. Participants should bring their own laptop with the free R software installed.
PDC28:          Using Data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09)
Instructors:   Cameron McPhee, American Institutes for Research; and Jeremy Redford, American Institutes for Research
 
Date:                Saturday, April 6
Time:               8 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Room:              602B
Fee:                  $105
 
This course provides researchers with information about the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09), a nationally representative, longitudinal study of more than 23,000 9th-graders in 2009, with a first follow-up in 2012 and a second follow-up in 2016. Data from the HSLS:09 allow researchers to examine the relationships between a range of family, school, and individual characteristics of students from the beginning of high school into postsecondary education, the workforce, and beyond. This course will familiarize participants with the HSLS:09 data and focus on the newly released HSLS:09 Second Follow-up (2016) dataset. Features of the HSLS:09 course include: a study overview; instructions on what analytic weights to apply and for what analyses; how data users can use HSLS:09 to answer their research questions; and how to access the data. Though this course is primarily lecture-based, there will be a demonstration of on-line resources. Therefore, it is recommended that each participant bring a personal laptop computer to the course.