January 2021

AERA has announced 22 recipients of the Dissertation and Research Grant Awards. Recipients are studying salient and relevant topics in education research and STEM such as science learning, early childhood development and mathematics skills, LGBTQ issues in schools, teacher and student school experiences, and outcomes of education policies and practices. The recipients are selected through and supported by the AERA-NSF Grants Program, which has been funded by the National Science Foundation since 1990.

These scholars are using federal data sets such as the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the High School Longitudinal Study, and the U.S. Census, as well as Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems from California, Tennessee, and Texas. These studies use rigorous quantitative methods and advanced statistical techniques to examine topics and issues in education research.

The grants provide advanced graduate students with $25,000 for one year as they write up their research and early career scholars with up to $35,000 for a two-year study. In addition, scholars participate in professional development and training activities aimed at building their research capacity and encouraging the use large-scale data in education research.

Since 1990, the AERA-NSF Grants Program has supported of over 600 graduate students and early career scholars as they launched their careers and developed their research agendas in STEM education research.

“The AERA-NSF Grants Program provides outstanding training and support for graduate students and early career researchers using large-scale data to study STEM and other education research topics” said Barbara Schneider (Michigan State University), chair of the program’s Governing Board. “For over three decades, the program has developed new scholars in education research and produced numerous publications that inform our understanding of education practices, policies, and phenomena.”

Current and former AERA-NSF Grants Program recipients will present their research in poster sessions during the 2021 Virtual AERA Annual Meeting. For more information about the grants program visit the AERA website. The next proposal deadline for Dissertation and Research Grants will be in spring 2021. The tables below list the Dissertation and Research Grant recipients who have commenced their awards in 2020.