Faculty research: a few examples
Cooperative learning
Brothers and fellow professors in the College of Education and Human Development, Roger and David W. Johnson are the nation’s leading researchers on cooperative learning. They head the Cooperative Learning Center which focuses on making classrooms and schools more cooperative places and on teaching cooperative skills—leadership, communication, decision making, trust building, and conflict resolution. [Cooperative learning]
Curriculum-based measurement (CBM): Student assessment
Stan Deno, professor of educational psychology, developed curriculum-based measurement (CBM) in the late 1970s with the goal of giving teachers of children with learning disabilities a simple set of evaluation procedures that would allow them to literally graph a child's academic progress. [Curriculum-based measurement (CBM): Student assessment]
Dropout prevention
Researchers in the College, including Sandra Christenson, school psychology professor; Mary Sinclair, research associate in the College's Institute on Community Integration (ICI); and Martha Thurlow, director of the National Center on Educational Outcomes, worked with colleagues in Minneapolis Public Schools to develop a program, Check & Connect, to intervene with youth identified as being at high risk for dropping out. [Dropout prevention]
Educational assessment and accountability
Mark Davison is co-director of the Minnesota Interdisciplinary Training in Educational Research (MITER) program, one of ten federally funded pre-doctoral training programs preparing a new generation of researchers whose ability to apply experimental methodology and cognitive sciences to practical educational issues will place them at the forefront of research and academic endeavors worldwide. He is also the American Guidance Service, Inc. & John P. Yackel Professor of Educational Assessment and Measurement and is researching methods for improved interpretation of test scores. “We are trying to identify common patterns in test scores and the relationships of those patterns. We hope to show how patterns of scores in longitudinal achievement data, in vocational inventories, and intelligence tests can give us information that is effective in helping children achieve their full abilities. We want parents to have a clearer understanding of their children’s test results. And we want to give schools and educators a more solid research base from which to make decisions."
Classroom management
Just about every classroom teacher has a variety of methods to deal with disruptive kids–methods that work for the great majority of situations and have stood the test of time. But as all effective teachers also know, occasionally a child comes along on whom these "best practices" don't make a dent. In fact, interventions that work well with other kids seem to make this kid behave even worse. Jennifer McComas, assistant professor of special education, is working to develop intervention techniques that provide positive outcomes for these hard-to-manage situations.
Access to mental health services
Michael Goh, assistant professor of counseling and student personnel psychology, is looking at ways to remove barriers and improve access to mental health services for refugees and new immigrant populations. One study concerns promoting language access to mental health services by using interpreters in mental health counseling; another is determining best practices in the delivery of mental health services to the Hmong. He also is involved in an interdisciplinary and culture-centered civic engagement psychosocial health project with a Hmong clan.
Self-injurious Behavior Project
Frank Symons, associate professor of educational psychology, along with colleagues in Neurology, Pediatrics, and Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare are investigating whether there are fundamental differences in immune-mediated sensory and related health markers among and between children with intellectual disabilities with and without self-injury. Self-injury is assessed in a variety of real-world contexts including homes and schools. The overall goal of the project is to improve our understanding of self-injury leading to more effective assessment and intervention strategies.
Innovative Assessments
Michael Rodriguez, associate professor of educational psychology, is investigating the design, implementation, and validity of alternate assessments for students with modified and alternate achievement standards. Working in collaboration with researchers at Vanderbilt University and Georgia State University, Dr. Rodriguez has supported the modification of state test items with experimental pilot studies of modified items including students with and without cognitive impairments. In addition, with researchers in the Institute on Community Integration, he is providing consultation support on a study of validity arguments in three states regarding their experiences with alternate assessments.
Dr. Rodriguez is also working with researchers in the Center for Early Education and Development, supporting the design of early literacy indicators for children in preschool. This work is now addressing the development of early literacy measures for native Spanish speaking children, in collaboration with researchers at Utah State University.
High School Mathematics and College Mathematics Performance
Tom Post (Curriculum & Instruction) and Michael Harwell are conducting a study of the relationship between the high school mathematics curriculum a student completes and their performance in college mathematics. This work is funded by the National Science Foundation and involves more than 13,000 students who enrolled in one of 34 four-year post-secondary institutions. Outcomes of particular interest in the study are the first and last college mathematics courses students complete and their associated grades, and the pattern of mathematics course taking and grades over eight semesters of college. The findings will inform high school mathematics curriculum adoption decisions and post-secondary policies and practices for advising students to enroll in particular mathematics courses.
Response-to-Intervention
Recent reforms allow for using data that assess student response to scientifically-based interventions to make special education eligibility decisions. This provision is commonly called response-to-intervention (RTI). However, Matthew Burns conceptualized RTI as the systematic use of assessment data to most efficiently allocate resources in order to enhance learning for all children. As such, he conducts research to identify how to best accomplish this goal and training in how to implement it.