Jim Soland, a doctoral student at the Stanford University
School of Education, was awarded in December a 2013 AERA Dissertation Grant to
fund his study of how predictive data can be blended with teacher intuition to
more accurately target supports and interventions for students.
Approximately 15 of these grants are awarded per year,
according to the AERA website. (AERA is the American Educational Research
Association.)
The AERA program seeks to stimulate research on U.S.
education issues that uses data sets supported by the National Center for
Education Statistics, the National Science Foundation and other federal
agencies. Along with encouraging use of this data, it aims to increase the
number of education researchers using these data sets. The program supports
research projects that are quantitative in nature, include the analysis of
existing data from NCES, NSF or other federal agencies, and have U.S. education
policy relevance.
Soland is using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey (NELS) to evaluate how effectively teachers and school districts can predict future student outcomes. These "early warning systems"
incorporate such data as grades, courses completed and absences to forecast
outcomes such as whether a student will drop out or enroll in college.
Indeed, this approach has enabled districts and states on many occasions
to predict these outcomes several years in advance. For example, research
shows that data can be used to predict which California students will fail the
high school exit exam as early as sixth grade.
“My goal is to see if these statistical models forecast
outcomes any better than if we simply ask teachers what they think will
happen,” said Soland. “If not, why not? These models implicitly
assume that their predictions improve on teacher intuition, an assumption that
hasn't yet been tested.”
Soland is a graduate student in the education school’s
Developmental and Psychological Sciences program, with a focus on quantitative
program evaluation, assessment, and data use. His primary doctoral
advisor is Edward Haertel, professor of education and chair of the National
Research Council's Board on Testing and Assessment. Kenji Hakuta, professor of
education, is his secondary adviser for his dissertation.
Soland is also an Institute for Education Sciences Fellow at
the education school’s Center for Education Policy and Analysis, where he does
research on value-added measures of teacher quality with Susanna Loeb, the
center’s faculty director and professor of education.