American Evaluation Association announces a call for proposals

The American Evaluation Association announced a call for proposals for presenters at the 2012 conference to be held Wednesday, October 24, through Saturday, October 27, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A variety of session formats are offered at the annual conference: single and multi-papers; poster sessions; roundtable discussions; demonstrations and skill building workshops; expert speakers, think tank presentations; and full and half-day preconference workshops.

Presentations may explore the Presidential Strand Theme, Evaluation in Complex Ecologies: Relationships, Responsibilities, Relevance, or any aspect of the breadth and depth of evaluation theory, practice, management, or consulting.   

Proposal deadline is Friday, March 16, 2012. For more information and proposal applications, see the AEA conference website.

Joan Buttram recently presented preliminary findings from a study of doctoral educational leadership programs in the US at the 2011 Annual Conference of the University Council for Educational Administration in Pittsburgh, PA.

 She is leading a study that surveys over 100 Ph.D. and Ed.D. programs to gather descriptive information. Results will help faculty and administrators learn about the variety of programs currently available and identify variables that merit additional investigation. The goal of the study is the development of an evaluation schema for leadership preparation programs to explore their effects and outcomes.

Laura T. Eisenman, Associate Professor in University of Delaware’s School of Education, Wendy Claiser and Debbie Bain from Center for Disability Studies, and Linda Grusenmeyer from DERDC presented preliminary data from their study examining the experiences of undergraduate who serve as peer mentors to students with intellectual disabilities on campus at the University of Delaware. Their presentation was at the 2011 State of the Art Conference on Postsecondary Education and Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities held November 3-4 at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. The study is one part of a national demonstration project, Transition and Postsecondary program for Students with Intellectual Disabilities (TPSID), funded by US Department of Education designed to expand postsecondary options for young adults with intellectual disabilities.

Peer mentors are a critical feature of postsecondary education programs for students with intellectual disabilities. They often engage and support students with ID across variety of campus environments to promote their greater participation and opportunities for integration. Eisenman, Bain, and Claiser have developed and offered a three-credit experiential learning course in the school of education to help future educators and human services professional learn to become peer mentors.  The study proposes to examine the experiences of initial cohorts of peer mentors in order to determine what resources they bring to the mentoring experience and how they describe their experience and their concerns while becoming peer mentors. Preliminary information has already guided course development and expanded planning for greater options for student roles as peer mentors.

 As the university’s TPSID program matures, the study will shift its focus from the development of peer mentors to their impact. What evidence is there that students develop effective attitudes, practices, and skills for mentoring a student with intellectual disabilities?   What impacts, if any, do peer mentors have on successful integration and participation of students enrolled in the CLSC program?

DERDC graduate research assistant, Mary Culnane is also working on the evaluation of the peer mentor project.

Aideen Murphy, DERDC post-doctoral research assistant, and Joan Buttram, interim director, recently received a grant to conduct a two-year evaluation study of Junior Achievement Delaware’s  JA BizTown, JA Finance Park, and Innovation Hub programs.

The proposed evaluation design is intended to provide Junior Achievement Delaware Inc. with information about the effects of participation in Junior Achievement programs on students’ academic knowledge, attitudes, and academic choices. The study was funded through a grant from the Longwood Foundation.

Recently announced–Call for proposals for presentations at the 35th Annual Conference of the Eastern Evaluation Research Society (EERS) to be held at the Seaview Resort and Spa in Absecon, New Jersey on April 29-May 1, 2012.

This year’s conference theme Evaluation in a Complex World: Balancing Theory and Practice.

 PRESENTATION PROPOSAL SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS DECEMBER 1, 2011  

Visit the website www.eers.org for information about the conference or to to download a presentation proposal form.

EERS is a local affiliate of the American Evaluation Association.

Joan Buttram, Interim Director, DERDC, was elected vice-president of the Pennsylvania Educational Research Association  at the organization’s annual fall conference October 7. She will serve as VP for one year and then assume the presidency for the next two years.

Pennsylvania Educational Research Association (PERA) is one of the oldest and largest state-level professional educational research organizations in the country.

• Leslie Cooksy, DERDC and Laura Eisenman, School of Education, were awarded a grant to evaluate the 2011 portfolio of Research in Disabilities Education (RDE) research projects for the National Science Foundation. The RDE program funds research intended to help people with disabilities pursue and succeed in STEM education and careers. ($197,000 over 3 years)

• Leslie Cooksy, DERDC and Jenni Buckley of the Department of Mechanical Engineering were awarded a National Science Foundation “Promoting Research and Innovation in Methodologies for Evaluation” grant to examine the quality of the evaluations of the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates and Research Experiences for Teachers programs.  ($250,000 over 2 years)

• Joan Buttram, Interim Director, DERDC, was awarded a contract by NBC Universal to conduct an evaluation of the NBC Learn K-12 resources. All Delaware middle and high school teachers have licenses to use these resources in their classrooms.

• Kasey Grier, Director of UD’s Museum Studies Program received a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services. Leslie Cooksy, DERDC, will be evaluating this grant, which will create a collaborative training program for professionals in the Tri-State Coalition of Historic Sites.

 The U.S. Department of Education has awarded the University of Delaware a $2.3 million grant to fund a five-year education project designed to expand postsecondary opportunities for young adults with intellectual disabilities (ID).

Laura Eisenman, associate professor in the School of Education is overseeing the project. Beth Mineo, center director for the Center for Disabilities Studies (CDS) and associate professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS), will serve as the faculty adviser. Linda Grusenmeyer, from DE Education R&D Center, will serve as the project’s research and evaluation coordinator.

The program is organized by professional staff from CDS and supported by volunteer students and faculty across campus.  The Career and Life Studies Certificate (CLSC) program is administered and coordinated within the University’s Division of Professional and Continuing Studies.

This is one of twenty-seven model demonstration projects designed to positively impact students’ successful transition into adulthood and, at the same time, allow researchers to examine the factors that facilitate or impede those transitions.

For more information see the National Coordinating Center for Transition and Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabilities (TPSID)

This evaluation study, funded by the Delaware State Legislature, was a collaborative effort led by Cheryl M. Ackerman, Policy Scientist at the Delaware Education Research and Development Center, and included members of both DERDC and the Delaware state Positive Behavior Support core team.

Positive Behavior Support programs in Delaware focus on developing school-wide strategies to reduce behavior problems and foster a positive school climate. The study examined the program’s school-wide level of implementation, Tier 1, and posed two questions:

(1) What are contributors and barriers to schools’ implementation of DE-PBS?

To examine contributors and barriers to implementation, researchers interviewed school administrators, teachers, school-based PBS teams, students, and district PBS coaches from six elementary and middle schools across the state.  Four dominant themes emerged: consistency and adaptability, rewards, data-based decision making, and professional development and support

(2) What is the relationship between DE-PBS and changes in incidence of disciplinary infractions?

For this question, researchers studied suspension rate data from 2005-2008 from 73 elementary and middle schools. A longitudinal hierarchical linear modeling analysis (HLM) was used to account for the nested structure of the data.  No significant differences were found. 

Recommendations for school-level implementation as well as recommendations for future research are described.

This evaluation effort included R&D Center staff members Leslie Cooksy and Steve Fifield; DERDC graduate research assistants, Aideen Murphy, Jonathan Rubright, Dariel Janerette, Mary Culnane, and School of Education graduate student, Sara McCraw.

Project collaborators from the Delaware state Positive Behavior Support core team included George Bear, UD School of Education; Debby Boyer and Sarah Hearn from the UD Center for Disabilities Studies, and Linda Smith, from the Delaware Department of Education. 

Click here to see pdf version of the full report and click here to see the executive summary.

For more information on the study, contact Cheryl M. Ackerman.

For more information on Positive Behavior Support in Delaware, go to http://www.delawarepbs.org/

A research team from the Delaware Education Research and Development Center (DERDC) released the findings of their study, Delaware Middle Schools Beating the Odds. The team was lead by Linda Grusenmeyer and included Steve Fifield, Associate Policy Analyst with DERDC; Dariel Janerette, Aideen Murphy, Qinghua Nian, Eric Pizzini, and Xiaoyu Qian, graduate assistants with DERDC; and Sara McCraw,graduate assistant in UD’s School of Education.

The investigation identified Delaware public and charter middle schools across the state which outperformed other Delaware middle schools with similar student demographic profiles. Teachers and administrators from six of these “Beating the Odds” schools and from six comparison middle schools were surveyed regarding their schools characteristics and practices. In a second phase of the study, principals, teachers and students from the six “Beating the Odds” schools were interviewed to determine what they believe accounts for their school’s success.

This research was similar to earlier DERDC reports by Joan Buttram which identified successful elementary and high schools in Delaware and explored what actions they were taking that contributed to their success.

The Middle Schools Study Survey found that significantly more educators from “Beating the Odds” schools agreed that 18 specific practices and beliefs were typical of their schools when compared to educators from comparison schools. Fourteen of these related to three domains: high expectations, data use, and collaboration.

Also, the two samples of schools differed in the intensity of their responses. That is, “Beating the Odds” school respondents “strongly agreed” significantly more often than comparison school respondents to over 80% of the survey items. Twenty-six of these items fell under the domains of teacher role, leadership, district influence, and instructional support.

Finally, while participants in on-site interviews described essential local differences, most of the middle schools that are “Beating the Odds” shared an organizational climate shaped by leadership that identified compelling educational approaches and brought educators, students and parents together around those approaches.

The study was supported by funding from the Delaware State Board of Education and can be downloaded here.

Full report (pdf) Delaware Middle Schools Beating the Odds.

Executive summary Delaware Middle Schools Beating the Odds