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Sandy Nader wins Firestone Medal, Honors Thesis Prize

Sandy Nader
Sandy Nader

Sandy Nader wins Firestone Medal, Honors Thesis Prize

Undergraduate Honors student studied factors affecting motivation and achievement of language minority students in reading.

By Amy Yuen

Sandy Nader, a new graduate of the Undergraduate Honors in Education Program, received the Firestone Medal and the David M. Kennedy Honors Thesis Prize for her study on the relationship between academic motivation and reading skills among middle-school readers. She received the awards at a ceremony at the Arrillaga Alumni Center as part of Commencement Weekend.

Drawing on national data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K), Nader investigated the reading motivation and achievement of language minority students as they transitioned from fifth to eighth grade. She found that for language minority students, socioeconomic barriers encountered in segregated schools and neighborhoods influence reading motivation and achievement more significantly than home literacy practices and school environment.

Associate Professor Sean Reardon, who served as Nader’s advisor on the project, wrote in an email: "In addition to the significance of its topic, Cassandra Nader's thesis is notable for its methodological sophistication, using state-of-the-art statistical methods to analyze data collected from a nationally-representative sample of 25,000 students, their parents, their teachers, and their principals. Throughout the process of writing the thesis, Cassandra displayed all the markings of a first-rate scholar: she is intellectually curious, animated by an interest in large social questions, a believer in empiricism, and conscientious in her analysis of data."

Nader, who graduated with a BA in English, plans to pursue a master’s degree in quantitative methods in social science next year at Columbia University.

The Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research is awarded to graduating students for honors projects in engineering and the social, physical and natural sciences. The Kennedy Prize is awarded annually to graduating students who have written outstanding honors theses in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences or engineering. Recipients of this award have accomplished significantly advanced research in the field and have shown strong potential for publication in peer-reviewed scholarly works.

The Undergraduate Honors in Education Program provides Stanford undergraduates with an opportunity to supplement their major field(s) of study with courses and research in the field of education. Students pursue independent inquiry under the close mentorship of School of Education faculty.


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