Empirical Education Presents at Annual IES Conference
Empirical Education staff members were part of two presentations at the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Research Conference in Washington D.C. Xin Wei and Denis Newman presented a study on paired randomization, a technique that the company uses extensively to improve the design of local school district experiments. The research, led by Andrew Jaciw, the company’s director of research design and analysis, drew on data from 12 experiments and provided an analysis of the statistical advantages of the approach. A full report is being prepared for presentation at AERA. The work is supported by a grant from the IES. A second presentation provided a preview of the state-wide experiment evaluating the effectiveness of the Alabama Math, Science and Technology Initiative. Empirical Education will begin analyzing the outcomes for the first year in fall 2007. Denis Newman and his co-PI, Richard Sawyer of Academy for Educational Development, led the presentation. The work is part of the Regional Education Lab in the Southeast.