WINTER 2015

Influence v. ObjectivityCurry professors consider how best to wield the influence of their education research.B Y LY N N B E L L

Under the leadership of Dean Bob Pianta the Curry School has made a significant commitment to bringing research to bear on education policy and practice. Curry professors and alumni alike often invest their entire careers in the pursuit of scientific

knowledge because they want their work ultimately to improve the quality and accessibility of education for all children.

“I’m really interested in changing education,” says Patricia Jennings, associate professor of education, whose research focuses on the social and emotional contexts for learning. “That’s why I’m so glad to be at Curry. I know it’s committed to changing education in a positive way that’s based on science.”

“I want to influence the field,” agrees Bill Therien, professor of special education at Curry and former co-director of the University of Iowa’s Center for Disability Research and Education. “We are absolutely in a position to have an influence. If not us, then who?”

Yet, moving implications for policy and practice out of peer-reviewed research reports and into the public discourse can feel like a risk for some scientists. How do education research-ers wield the influence of their evidence while also maintaining their reputation as objective scientists who are open to their data? We asked some Curry faculty members for their insights on this topic.

“Despite having some reticence to jump in with set conclusions, I don’t think education scientists should be shy when there is plenty of research evidence to suggest a practice or policy is effective and meaningful,” says Jason Downer, associate professor and director of the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning. “It helps, however, when this evidence cuts across multiple research groups and investigators, so that it’s not resting solely on one group’s work.”

“The skill is in being able to state policy or practice implications in usable terms while not misrepresenting what the science says and its limits of authority, that is, how clear the results are,” says Patrick Tolan, professor and director of Youth-Nex: The U.Va. Center to Promote Effective Youth Development.

“Use careful language and discuss limitations,” offers Jennings. “‘Promising’ is a good word or ‘best evidence we have.’ Policy makers can use that.”

Faculty members sometimes differ in their thinking about when the evidence is strong enough to warrant making a recommendation, however.

“I rely on cumulative evidence across settings and time,” says Sara Rimm-Kaufman, a profes-sor in our Educational Psychology: Applied Developmental Science program.

“Ultimately, there is still a leap of faith. We always can shy away from making assertions by saying we need more research. However, as researchers, we need to consider the broad range

Comprehensive Reading Solutions SiteMichael McKenna, Thomas G. Jewell Professor of Reading, Sharon Walpole (M.Ed. ‘96, Ph.D. ‘00 Reading) and Terri Purcell (M.Ed. ‘98 Spec Ed; Ph.D. ‘02 Reading) developed a website containing a growing set of professional learning modules: www.ComprehensiveReadingSolutions.com. All modules are open access and allow teachers to work individually or in groups to explore literacy-related topics ranging from birth through grade 12. The modules contain a combination of text, videos, podcasts, and various downloadable resources. Some of the modules have already been built into Curry School courses as part of a flipped classroom approach.

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“ULTIMATELY, THERE IS STILL A LEAP OF FAITH.”

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of existing evidence and look at patterns. We need to consider signal versus noise and con-sider the quality of the existing evidence. Then, ultimately, we make a decision and a recom-mendation.”

Jennings considers herself a bit more lib-eral on the question: “If there’s a randomized control trial that says something has an effect, policymakers should consider adopting it. So little policy is based on any evidence. If there’s a decently studied program and it’s feasible, it’s certainly worth considering.”

On the other hand, Julie Cohen, a first-year assistant professor of education—and pos-sibly because she is so early in her career, she concedes—believes that the accumulation of knowledge is slow and should not be rushed. “I would rather go slow and provide more nuanced evidence than advocate for a particular approach.”

Differences in the research itself may be a factor in this dilemma. Cohen says that the kinds of research she does (on teacher quality measurement and teacher preparation) may not be generalizable at the national level. She is very cautious about the limitations and repre-sentativeness of her findings.

Therien, like Jennings, does more applied intervention research. “I feel very comfortable with discussing implications and writing in practitioner journals,” he says. It helps that his

practitioner pieces produce more feedback than the research articles do, and they are included in the syllabi of other professors. “That’s rein-forcing,” he says. “It feels like my work is having an impact.”

Whenever a researcher feels ready to make a recommendation, other considerations come into play. Jim Wyckoff is adamant that in the policy maker’s world of competing values, his own preferences as to policy outcomes should not be privileged more than anyone else’s. Wyckoff is a professor and director of EdPolicyWorks, the Center on Education Policy and Workforce Competitiveness.

“I feel comfortable summarizing and dis-cussing the evidence on a particular topic but don’t feel comfortable being an advocate for any particular policy,” he says.

From Downer’s perspective one of the big-gest challenges is that education science often operates in the gray, while policymakers and practitioners are looking for black or white answers.

“All too often a policymaker will ask some-thing like, ‘How do we reduce the achievement gap in our public schools?’ As an education scientist, it is challenging to respond to this question with a succinct answer without feel-ing like you’re moving away from data-driven evidence.”

The response based in science, he says, is

more likely of the “it depends” variety. That is, it depends on factors such as the characteristics of the leadership in the school district, the composition of the students and families, exist-ing resources, and the district’s flexibility for making changes.

Yet, a tension exists between policy makers’ desire for good evidence on which to base reforms and their sense of urgency to improve outcomes for students who will not get a sec-ond chance at their education, which is not lost on Wyckoff.

“My approach has been to share with poli-cymakers as clearly as I can what I believe is known about the potential effects of their intended policy, including most likely out-comes and the range and likelihood of poten-tial alternative outcomes,” Wyckoff says.

In the end, he thinks researchers may be best guided by the Hippocratic Oath to abstain from doing harm. Sometimes, even though evidence does not meet the standard for peer reviewed publication, informed judgment sug-gests encouraging or discouraging the imple-mentation of a policy.

“In other cases where effects are so uncer-tain,” he adds, “no advice may be the best approach.”

Access More Curry Research NewsThe Curry School hosts three pan-university centers that conduct research related to K-12 education and youth development. If you are interested in receiving periodic news about their work, use the URL listed here to subscribe to the center’s email newsletters:

EdPolicyWorks -curry.virginia.edu/edpolicyworksE-News Subscription - http://goo.gl/NURPcJ

Youth-Nex - curry.virginia.edu/youth-nexE-News Subscription - http://bit.ly/YN_News

Center for Advanced Study of Teaching & Learning (CASTL) - curry.virginia.edu/castlE-News Subscription - http://tinyurl.com/nzvt23s

The Curry School has video-recorded a number of lectures from our Research Lectureships Series and our Education Policy Seminar Series over the past year. Free access to the digital videos is available online at

curry.virginia.edu/research/recorded-talks

Topics include:• Evidence-Based Programs to Prevent

Behavior Problems in Schools• IncentivestoIncreaseCollegeSavingsand

Enrollment• Impacts of Classmates on Preschoolers’

Language Development”

Free Access to Video Lectures

SURP, the Summer Undergraduate Research Program at the Curry School, supports students from under-represented groups to engage in education-based research. The 8-week summer program brings undergraduates from all over the country to Charlottesville to engage in education science research. The School has completed seven summers of SURP with over 40 alumni, many of whom have pursued masters and doctoral programs at Curry and in other research institutions. Applications for summer 2015 are due February 1 and can be found online at curry.virginia.edu/surp

Undergrad Research Training

Read more: The rest of this article can be found online at curry.virginia.edu/scholars-newsletter

Faculty in Print: View a list of new faculty books and selected journal articles and book

chapters at curry.virginia.edu/scholars-newsletter

Oren L. McClain Ph.D. ‘11 Math Education

Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Urban Education,Loyola University of Maryland School of Education since 2012.

“At Loyola, I’ve enjoyed teaching my methods courses as well as having the time and space to hash out my research ideas. I’m really looking forward to beginning a new study that exam-ines the mathematics identity development of Black high school students.”

Curry School Impact: “While I appreciated every professor I had the opportunity to take classes with in Curry, having an advisor and mentor whose research was aligned with my interests was vital to my success. Dr. Robert Berry pushed me to think in ways that I had never considered, helping me to develop a critical and asset-based lens that has allowed me to establish a research agenda that I believe will have a significant impact on the improved experiences of Black students in mathematics from elementary to graduate school.”

David ColtonPh.D. ‘97 Education Evaluation

Adjunct professor, Health Care Administration,Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, Va., since 1990.Retired from Virginia Department of Mental Health in 2010.

“Although retired, I continue to be engaged in teaching and research. Interestingly, my work on organizational change and development in mental health organizations has been well received in Europe, where I have been asked to consult and present at European conferences.” Curry School Impact: “I appreciate that Curry faculty were available, formally and informally, to answer questions, help with research, or just for a chat. Shortly after graduating, I was con-tacted by my advisor, Bob Covert, and honored to be asked to coauthor a text on instrument construction.” (Designing and Constructing Instruments for Social Research and Evaluation, John Wiley and Sons, 2007).

Where Are They Now? Psychometric Analysis Software

Access to Gifted Education

About seven years ago, Patrick Meyer, an associate professor in our research, statistics and evaluation program, developed jMetrik, a free, open-source software application for psychometric analysis. In 2009 it won the Bradley Hanson Award from the National Council on Measurement in Education. To date, the software has been downloaded by over 24,000 users in 20 different countries, with most users residing in the US, Brazil, Canada, Chile, India, and the UK. To support jMetrik users, Meyer authored the book Applied Measurement with jMetrik, recently published by Routledge. Learn more at www.itemanalysis.com/

With two new grants totaling nearly $4 million, Carolyn Callahan, professor of education and an expert in gifted education, is working to improve access to and the quality of gifted and talented programming for underrepresented student groups in both urban and rural settings.

An Institute of Education Sciences grant will examine how school districts in three states iden-tify gifted students from underrep-resented populations and how they structure programming so that those students are successful.

A Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program grant funded a study by Callahan and Amy Azano (Ph.D. ’09 English Ed), an assistant pro-fessor of education at Virginia Tech, to work with rural school divisions in Virginia and identify more gifted and talented students.

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Scenes from the newly renovated Ruffner Hall, which reopened last summer.

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Submit your class note at curry.virginia.edu/classnotes/submitJose Luis Alvarado (Ph.D. ’01 Spec Ed) has been named dean of California State University Monterey Bay’s newly created College of Education... Michael Bentley (Ed.D. ’85 Sci Ed) published his first practical, how-to book aimed at parents and teachers: Connecting Children: Ideas and Activities for Parents and Educators (2014, Wood ‘N’ Barnes). Rachel Boren (Ph.D. ’12 Res Stats & Eval) and Daniel Tillman (Ph.D. ’12 IT) were married in May 9, 2014, in El Paso, Texas. They both work at the University of Texas – El Paso. Rachel is an associate research scientist. Daniel is an assistant professor.John Childrey (M.Ed. ’68, Ph.D. ’73 English) was named Professor Emeritus at Florida Atlantic University in 2012.Emily Davis (Ph.D. ’10 C&I) is currently serving as the Santa Cruz/Silicon Valley New Teacher Project Program Director for the New Teacher Center in California. Her first book, Making Mentoring Work (Rowman and Littlefield) was published in 2014.Suzanne Rushton Harper (Ph.D ’02 Math Ed) was promoted to full professor in the Mathematics Department at Miami University. She teaches math-ematics content courses for prospective K-12 teachers. Her main research interests include the teaching and learning of mathematics with technology.Charles Igel (Ph.D. ’10 Rsrch Stats & Eval) leads the M.Ed. Elementary Education Program at Regis University in Denver, Colo.Frank Layman, PT, DPT, MTC (Ed.D. ’99 C&I) is a specialist in the field of orthopedics and sports medicine, with over 20 years of experience treating patients and athletes of all age groups and activity levels. He wrote Success Through Logical Thinking (Dog Ear Publishing).Carolyn Massie Still (Ed.D. ’93 C&I) “After

retiring from Albemarle County....I have gone abroad. I have been a principal of a grades 1-12 school in Taiwan, an elementary principal of an American school in Egypt, and now am a classroom teacher in an inter-national school in Germany...Jessica Matthews Meth (M.Ed. ’01, Ph.D. ’08 English Ed) was interviewed for a public radio WAMU 88.5 segment on efforts to revamp the reading curriculum in the DC Public Schools. Meth is Director of Literacy Programs for the district... Holly McCartney (Ph.D. ’05 Elem Ed) is an associate professor of Early Childhood, Elementary and Reading at James Madison University. She coor-dinates the ECED MAT post-baccalaureate program and is a Madison Collaborative Fellow.Patrick J. McGuinn (M.Ed. ’02 Ed Policy) appeared again this year in the RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Presence rankings published in Education Week. McGuinn is an associate professor at Drew University in Madison, NJ. Linda Miller (M.Ed. ’78, Ed.D ’91 Soc Studies Ed) has deep ancestral roots in Virginia. Her ancestor William Herndon got her into the Colonial Dames and Heraldry societies; his grandson William Herndon got her into the DAR; and his son John got her into the Daughters of 1812. Sean Ruday (Ph.D. ’11, English Ed) pub-lished his third book, The Informational Writing Toolkit: Using Mentor Texts in Grades 3-5 (Routledge Eye on Education). Sean is an assistant professor of English education at Longwood University.Ryan Richard Ruff (M.T. ’05 Soc Studies Ed, Ph.D. ’09 Rsrch Stats & Eval) is an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Health Promotion at the New York University College of Dentistry, with an associated research assistant

professorship at the NYU Global Institute of Public Health.... dental.nyu.edu/faculty/ft/rrr8.htmlEdward Sabornie (B.S. ’74, M.Ed. ’75, Ph.D. ’83 Special Ed) co-edited Handbook of Classroom Management (2nd ed.) with Edmund T. Emmer (Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 2015) and co-authored two chapters in the volume.Richard Strauss (Ed.D. ’93 Sci Ed) has retired from his administrative position with Norfolk Public Schools and returned to middle school science teaching at Saint Patrick Catholic School in Norfolk.David H. Vawter (Ph.D. ’98 C&I) won the Advisor of the Year award at Winthrop University. He is associate professor and secondary social studies education coordinator in the College of Education... Robin Ward (Ph.D. ’97 Math Ed) recent pub-lished “Go figure! Using the art of Jasper Johns to teach number concepts” in the Southern Early Childhood Association’s Dimensions of Early Childhood, 42(2), 23-27. Echo Wu (Ph.D. ’07 Ed Psych: Gifted) is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Studies, Leadership & Counseling at College of Education at Murray State University, Kentucky... In MemoriamCecil Duke Mercer (Ed.D. ’74 Spec Ed) passed away on November 21, 2014, at home after a long battle with neurological Lyme Disease. He was a retired Distinguished Professor at the University of Florida and in 2011 received the Outstanding Alumni Higher Education Faculty Award from the Curry School Foundation...

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Read more. Many class notes were abbreviated due to space limitations. You can read the full versions, including photos and fond memories, at curry.virginia.edu/scholars-newsletter