blog posts and news stories

Conference Season 2011

Empirical researchers will again be on the road this conference season, and we’ve included a few new conference stops. Come meet our researchers as we discuss our work at the following events. If you will be present at any of these, please get in touch so we can schedule a time to speak with you, or come by to see us at our presentations.

NCES-MIS

This year, the NCES-MIS “Deep in the Heart of Data” Conference will offer more than 80 presentations, demonstrations, and workshops conducted by information system practitioners from federal, state, and local K-12 agencies.

Come by and say hello to one of our research managers, Joseph Townsend, who will be running Empirical Education’s table display at the Hilton Hotel in Austin, Texas from February 23-25th. Joe will be presenting interactive demonstrations of MeasureResults, which allows school district staff to conduct complete program evaluations online.

SREE

Attendees of this spring’s Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE) Conference, held in Washington, DC March 3-5, will have the opportunity to discuss questions of generalizability with Empirical Education’s Chief Scientist, Andrew Jaciw and President, Denis Newman at two poster sessions. The first poster, entitled External Validity in the Context of RCTs: Lessons from the Causal Explanatory Tradition applies insights from Lee Cronbach to current RCT practices. In the second poster, The Use of Moderator Effects for Drawing Generalized Causal Inferences, Jaciw addresses issues in multi-site experiments. They look forward to discussing these posters both online at the conference website and in person.

AEFP

We are pleased to announce that we will have our first showing this year at the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) Annual Conference. Join us in the afternoon on Friday, March 25th at the Grand Hyatt in Seattle, WA as Empirical’s research scientist, Valeriy Lazarev, presents a poster on Cost-benefit analysis of educational innovation using growth measures of student achievement.

AERA

We will again have a strong showing at the 2011 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Conference. Join us in festive New Orleans, April 8-12 for the final results on the efficacy of the PCI Reading Program, our qualitative findings from the first year of formative research on our MeasureResults online program evaluation tool, and more.

View our AERA presentation schedule for more details and a complete list of our participants.

SIIA

This year’s SIIA Ed Tech Industry Summit will take place in gorgeous San Francisco, just 45 minutes north of Empirical Education’s headquarters in the Silicon Valley. We invite you to schedule a meeting with us at the Palace Hotel from May 22-24.

Empirical Education Develops Web-Based Tool to Improve Teacher Evaluation

For school districts looking for ways to improve teacher observation methods, Empirical Education has begun development of a web-delivered tool that will provide a convenient way to validate their observational protocols and rubrics against measures of the teacher’s contribution to student academic growth.

Empirical Education is charged with developing a “validation engine” as part of the Measures of Teacher Effectiveness (MET) project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As described on the project’s website, the tool will allow users to “view classroom observation videos, rate those videos and then receive a report that evaluates the predictive validity and rater consistency for the protocol.” The MET project has collected thousands of hours of video of classrooms as well as records of the characteristics and academic performance associated with the students in the class.

By watching and coding videos of a range of teachers, users will be able to verify whether or not their current teacher rating systems are identifying teaching behavior associated with higher achievement. The tool will allow users to review their own rating systems against a variety of MET project measures, and will give real-time feedback through an automated report generator.

Development of the validation engine builds on two years of MET Project research, which included data from six school districts across the country and over 3,000 teachers. Researchers will now use the data to identify leading indicators of teacher practice on student achievement. The engine is expected to undergo beta testing over the next few months, beginning with the National Math and Science Initiative.

Announcement of the new tool comes as interest in alternative ways to measure the effectiveness of teachers is becoming a major issue in education and as federal, state and local officials and teacher organizations look for researched-based ways to identify effective teachers and improve student outcomes.

“At a time when schools are experiencing budget cuts, it is vital that school districts have ready access to research tools, so that they can make the most informed decisions,” says Denis Newman, President of Empirical Education. The validation engine will be part of a suite of web-based technology tools developed by the company, including [MeasureResults, an online tool that allows districts to evaluate the effectiveness of the products and programs they use.

Conference Season has Arrived

Springtime marks the start of “conference season” and Empirical Education has been busy attending and preparing for the various meetings and events. We are participating in five conferences (CoSN, SIIA, SREE, NCES-MIS, and AERA) and we hope to see some familiar faces in our travels. If you will be attending any of the following meetings, please give us a call. We’d love to schedule a time to speak with you.

CoSN

The Empirical team headed to the 2010 Consortium of School Networking conference in Washington, DC at the Omni Shoreham Hotel from February 28—March 3, 2010. We were joined by Eric Lehew, Executive Director of Learning Support Services at Poway Unified School District, who co-presented with us a poster titled, “Turning Existing Data into Research” (Monday, March 1 from 1:00pm to 2:00pm). As exhibitors, Empirical Education also hosted a 15-minute vendor demonstration entitled Building Local Capacity: Using Your Own Data Systems to Easily Measure Program Effectiveness, to launch our MeasureResults tool.

SIIA

The Software & Information Industry Association held their 2010 Ed Tech Government Forum in Washington, DC on March 3–4. The focus this year was on Education Funding & Programs in a (Post) Stimulus World and included speakers, such as Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan and West Virginia Superintendent of Schools, Steven Paine.

SREE

Just as the SIIA Forum came to a close, the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness held their annual conference—Research Into Practice—March 4-6 where our chief scientist, Andrew Jaciw, and research scientist, Xiaohui Zheng, presented their poster on estimating long-term program impacts when the control group joins treatment in the short-term. Dr. Jaciw was also named on a paper presentation with Rob Olsen of Abt Associates.

Thursday March 4, 2010
3:30pm–5:00pm: Session 2
2E. Research Methodology
Examining State Assessments
Forum
Chair: Jane Hannaway, The Urban Institute
Using State Or Study-Administered Achievement Tests in Impact Evaluations
Rob Olsen and Fatih Unlu, Abt Associates and Andrew Jaciw, Empirical Education

Friday March 5, 2010
5:00pm–7:00pm: Poster Session
Poster Session: Research Methodology
Estimating Long-Term Program Impacts When the Control Group Joins Treatment in the Short-Term: A Theoretical and Empirical Study of the Tradeoffs Between Extra- and Quasi-Experimental Estimates
Andrew Jaciw, Boya Ma, and Qingfeng Zhao, Empirical Education

NCES-MIS

The 23rd Annual Management Information Systems (MIS) Conference was held in Phoenix, Arizona March 3-5. Co-sponsored by the Arizona Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the MIS Conference brings together the people who work with information collection, management, transmittal, and reporting in school districts and state education agencies. The majority of the sessions focused on data use, data standards, statewide data systems, and data quality. For more information, refer to the program highlights.

AERA

We will have a strong showing at the American Educational Research Association annual conference in Denver, Colorado from Friday, April 30 through Tuesday, May 4. Please come talk to us at our poster and paper sessions. View our AERA presentation schedule to find out which of our presentations you would like to attend. And we hope to see you at our customary stylish reception Sunday evening, May 2 from 6 to 8:30—mark your calendars!

IES

We will be presenting at the IES Research Conference in National Harbor, MD from June 28-30. View our poster here.

MeasureResults® to be Launched at CoSN 2010

Empirical Education will launch its web-based educational research solution, MeasureResults on March 1 at the Consortium for School Networking conference in Washington, DC. MeasureResults is a suite of online tools that makes rigorous research designs and statistical processes accessible to school systems and educational publishers who want to evaluate the effectiveness of products and services aimed at improving student performance.

“MeasureResults will change the way that school districts and product developers conduct rigorous evaluations,” said Denis Newman, Empirical Education President. “Instead of hiring outside evaluators or onsite research experts or statisticians, MeasureResults allows school district personnel to design a study, collect data, and review reports in our user-friendly online platform.”

MeasureResults grew out of a federally funded research project to develop a low-cost method for schools to conduct their own research. The product was developed for commercial distribution under a Small Business Innovation Research grant from the U.S. Department of Education. By moving the educational research processes online, MeasureResults makes school-run evaluations more efficient and less expensive.

Poway Completes Study from MeasureResults Pilot

The results are in for Poway Unified School District’s first research study using our MeasureResults online tool. PUSD was interested in measuring the impact of CompassLearning’s Odyssey Reading program in the middle grades. Using an “interrupted time series” design with a comparison group, they found that both 7th and 8th grade students averaged 1 to 2 points higher than expected on the NWEA MAP Literacy assessment. PUSD plans to continue their evaluation of CompassLearning Odyssey in different subject areas and grade levels. Join us in D.C. at this year’s CoSN conference on March 1, 2010 as Eric Lehew, Executive Director of Learning Support Services at PUSD, presents findings and reflections on the process of using MeasureResults to conduct research at the local district level.

Click here to download a copy of the PUSD achievement report.

Empirical Education Appoints Chief Scientist

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Andrew Jaciw, Ph.D. as Empirical Education’s Chief Scientist. Since joining the company more than five years ago, Dr. Jaciw has guided and shaped our analytical and research design practices, infusing our experimental methodologies with the intellectual traditions of both Cronbach and Campbell. As Chief Scientist, he will continue to lead Empirical’s team of scientists setting direction for our MeasureResults evaluation and analysis processes, as well as basic research into widely applicable methodologies. Andrew received his Ph.D in Education from Stanford University.

Growth at Empirical Education is More than Just Statistical

We are growing! Empirical Education is excited to announce a recent expansion in our company. Over the summer, we have had the pleasure of adding five new members to our team, rounding out our number to 30 total employees. The addition of four members to our research department is a vital step in beginning work on our new projects taking place during the 2009-2010 school year. The statistician joining our analysis team will work closely with the engineering team to help streamline our MeasureResults processes.

In addition to enriching our staff, we are also increasing our space. We acquired a third office unit in our Palo Alto building this summer, and we are busily readying it for a move-in. Meanwhile, we are remaining quite cozy in our two current offices.

We view this expansion as a glimpse of what the future will hold for our company, and we look forward to introducing you to some of our new faces. Feel free to stop by our office anytime for a guided tour.

Poway District Using MeasureResults

With the new school year approaching, we are excited to announce a partnership with MeasureResults’ newest user, Poway Unified School District (PUSD). With the help of MeasureResults, PUSD educators will design and conduct their own program evaluations, while outsourcing the analytics and reporting functions to MeasureResults’ automated analysis engine. Planned study designs include an “interrupted time series,” which compares current achievement levels to levels from several years prior to the introduction of the program under evaluation. Plans also include a comparison group study which, by matching classrooms that are using the program with similar classrooms that are not, can estimate the difference that the new program has made. Special analyses will determine whether the program benefits various subgroups of students (e.g. English language learners) more than others. We anticipate that PUSD’s valuable product feedback and input will enable us to make ongoing improvements to MeasureResults’ functionality and usability.

New Directions for Research Discussed at Institute of Education Sciences Conference

The Fourth Annual Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Research Conference was convened June 7 - 9 with an air of anticipation about new directions, as John Q. Easton began his term as director. Formerly executive director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research, he brings a new perspective to IES. While Dr. Easton is quoted in Education Week as saying he will retain the rigor that IES has made a priority, the Consortium’s work points to the importance of building local capacity for research to support reform. In a paper published online, he and his colleagues provide a clear and detailed rationale for their approach that includes the need for combining high quality research with the ability to cut through technical details to communicate both good and bad news to local decision makers.

Three Empirical Education staff members furthered this agenda of building capacity for local school and district evaluations in poster presentations at the conference. Dr. Robert Smith, the company’s vice president of engineering, outlined the company’s progress on MeasureResults™, a web-based evaluation solution for schools and districts. (Funding for the development of MeasureResults is from an IES Small Business Innovation Research grant.)

Dr. Denis Newman, the company’s president, and Andrew P. Jaciw, director of experimental design and analysis, presented their findings on the process of developing low cost, timely, and locally relevant experiments (funded by an IES research grant). Development efforts on MeasureResults continue through the Empirical Education team’s application of the knowledge gained from this project entitled “Low Cost Experiments to Support Local School District Decisions.” This project guides the team in developing decision makers’ understanding of, and building local capacity for, conducting evaluation research.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

In response to the recent announcements of education stimulus funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Empirical Education is now offering assistance to state and local education agencies in building local capacity for rigorous evaluations. Our MeasureResults system helps state and district planners answer questions about the effectiveness of schools and of locally implemented programs. The enhanced analytic capabilities built into the MeasureResults system enables school districts to conduct their own rigorous research with findings relevant to their localized setting, using their existing datasets. Read more about how Empirical Education can work with state and local education agencies to take full advantage of ARRA funding. Also see how we partner with publishers to provide research packages along with their product offerings.