Annual Summer Workshops
Each summer, the National Center for Education Research (NCER) in the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education supports IPR-hosted training institutes and workshops to improve methodological practices in education research, each co-organized by an IPR fellow. The aim of these workshops is to increase the national capacity of researchers to develop and conduct rigorous evaluations of education interventions and policies. Courses are suitable for most empirical researchers with PhD-level training or advanced doctoral students.
Cluster-Randomized Trials
This two-week training institute covers a range of specific topics in the design, implementation, and analysis of data for use in cluster-randomized trials, allowing researchers to account for the group effects of teachers and classrooms when measuring an intervention’s effects on individual student achievement.
Organizers: Spyros Konstantopoulos with Larry V. Hedges
Design and Analysis of Practical Quasi-Experiments for Use in Education Research
Complementing the current interest in randomized experiments in education, the workshop seeks to improve the quality of quasi-experiments, which are needed when random assignment is not feasible or breaks down. Several recent analyses of the quality of quasi-experiments in education point to designs and analyses that are generally below the state of the art. Thus, the workshop's principal aim is to improve this state.
Organizers: Thomas D. Cook and William Shadish
Design, Implementation, and Analysis of Within-Study Comparisons (WSCs)
The goals of the WSC workshop are to provide researchers with cutting-edge tools for designing, implementing, and analyzing their own within-study comparisons, to help researchers plan higher quality and more internally valid WSCs, and to provide general education and background knowledge on WSCs for researchers interested in methodology.
Organizers: Thomas D. Cook, William Shadish, Peter Steiner, and Vivian Wong
