November 2018
On November 1–3, the AERA Grants Program welcomed education researchers and federal agency representatives to its Fall Research Conference. This invited conference featured graduate students and early career scholars presenting research funded by the program.
The fall conference gathered the new cohort of dissertation awardees, those who recently completed their dissertations, and new early-career research award recipients supported by the Grants Program. Scholars presented their completed dissertation research and received guidance from senior scholars who serve on the program’s Governing Board. Throughout the conference, grantees had opportunities to engage and network with the Governing Board members, federal agency representatives, and their peers.
The graduate students and early career scholars participating in the program all use large-scale, federally funded data sets to address education research topics such as mathematics education, literacy, school discipline policies, student motivation, and other topics related to STEM learning and education. Finbarr (Barry) Sloane, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF) Education and Human Resources Directorate, delivered a keynote address and highlighted how the program aligns with the NSF goals of supporting data use, supporting STEM research, and training the next generation of scholars and researchers.
Arthur (Skip) Lupia, NSF
Arthur (Skip) Lupia, assistant director of the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate at NSF, led a second keynote session. Engaging all participants, Lupia unraveled the elements of communicating research effectively to multiple and diverse audiences, a central focus of the Grants Program.
A key aspect of the conference was the data training and research concepts discussed throughout the sessions. AERA Grants Governing Board Chair Barbara Schneider (Michigan State University) and Board member Chandra Muller (University of Texas at Austin) opened the conference with a group discussion and exercise around developing research questions that can inform change in policies and practice using the federal large-scale data sets.
Grantees also participated in an interactive workshop on Open Science, led by Felice J. Levine, AERA executive director and Grants Program principal investigator, and David Mellor, project manager at the Center for Open Science. The workshop focused on steps researchers can take to share data and pre-register developing studies, and ways to foster research that is transparent and reproducible. Participants discussed a series of guidelines and practices to improve transparency in research reporting and to encourage open science.
Discussions of trust in science and professional work were continued in an interactive session on sexual harassment in the academy and science. Levine, co-led a discussion on sexual harassment and culture change with Billy M. Williams, vice-president for ethics, diversity, and inclusion at the American Geophysical Union. Williams served as a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ committee that prepared the 2018 report on Sexual Harassment of Women.
In addition to discussing data and recommendations from that report, this session also considered the recently released NSF policy that requires awardee organizations to report findings of sexual harassment, other forms of harassment, or sexual assault regarding an NSF-funded PI or co-PI. Levine and Williams reiterated that this policy is aimed at creating a safe and open environment for all to produce research.
Professional development and training are at the core of the AERA Grants Program.
“Early career is an important stage to learn fundamental research skills and experience the latest innovations in science training,” said Schneider. “This program is an excellent opportunity for graduate students and early career scholars to use large-scale data to address important questions in education research, network with scholars who are using these data, and discuss advances in the field.”
NSF has funded the AERA Grants Program since 1990 through eight consecutive awards. This had led to support of over 500 graduate students and early career scholars. It has helped scholars to launch their careers and develop their research agendas. Their research studies have appeared in peer- reviewed journals, books, and other publications across the behavioral and social sciences.
AERA Grants Program grantees will present their research in a poster session during the 2019 Annual Meeting. The table below lists the recently awarded AERA Grants Program Dissertation and Research Grant recipients and former grantees who participated in the conference.
Aaron Anthony University of Pittsburgh
Assessing the Accuracy, Use, and Framing of College Net Pricing Information
F. Chris Curran University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) School of Public Policy
Estimating the Effect of State Zero Tolerance Laws on Exclusionary Discipline, Racial Discipline Gaps, and Student Behavior
Daniel Hamlin University of Oklahoma
Does School-Based Parental Involvement Improve School Safety? Determining Causal Effects From the School Survey on Crime and Safety
John Hansen Washington State Institute for Public Policy
Estimating Bias in Weighted High School GPAs
Lacey A. Hartigan EMT Associates, Inc.
General Education Development (GED) Recipients’ Life Course Experiences: Humanizing the Findings
Phoebe Ho University of Pennsylvania
In Pursuit of the American Dream: Family Histories and Adolescent’s Educational Outcomes in Immigrant and Native Families
HyeJin Hwang Florida State University, Florida Center for Reading Research
Do Knowledge and Motivation Matter? The Role of General Knowledge and Reading Motivation in Reading Achievement in the Elementary Years
Jeongeun Kim Arizona State University
Explaining the Gender Gap: Are Departmental and Institutional Characteristics Linked to Labor Market Outcomes of STEM Graduates?
Kathleen Lynch Brown University
Inequality in Children's Summer Experiences: 1999 to 2011
Anna J. Markowitz University of Virginia
Teacher Turnover in Head Start: Trends, Correlates, and Consequences
Daniel Princiotta Johns Hopkins University
The Great Graduation Rate Rise: District, State, and Federal Influences On U.S. High School Graduation Rate Trends From 1998-2010
Emily Rauscher Brown University
Fair and Equal: School Funding and State-Level Racial Inequality of Educational Achievement
Guan Saw The University of Texas at San Antonio
Opportunities and Outcomes of In- and Out-of-School STEM Learning
Kendra Taylor Sanametrix
New Directions for Integration Policy: Exploring Racial and Income Segregation at Multiple Geographic Scales in Large U.S. School Districts, 1990-2010
Jennifer D. Timmer Vanderbilt University
Improving Math and Reading Outcomes for English Learners