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Evidence-Based Research in Education

AIR applies rigorous standards to the review and synthesis of research to determine what approaches to education are based on high quality evidence. Our staff help set standards for the quality of impact studies, through the What Works Clearinghouse and Doing What Works, as well as other federal, foundation, and state projects. AIR also develops tools for analyzing data across studies and manages complex reviews.

All Reports

  • Hawaii Race to the Top Evaluation

    The Race to the Top (RTTT) initiative, part of the larger federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, provided an unprecedented amount of federal competitive grant funding to push educational systems toward innovation through the use of coherent and comprehensive reforms. AIR is conducting a mixed-method evaluation for the state of Hawaii, examining the extent to which the state’s RTTT program has been implemented as planned and is meeting its key benchmarks, especially for RTTT resource usage and participation. AIR evaluators are analyzing which changes in policy and professional practice have been associated with implementation as well as the resulting impact on student performance. The evaluation is providing timely, actionable information, supporting continuous improvement and enabling RTTT leaders, participants, and stakeholders to judge the value and worth of the initiative and its components.

  • The Kindergarten Year

    This report answers two basic sets of questions about children's knowledge and skill acquisition during the kindergarten year. What gains are children making from the fall of the kindergarten year to the spring of the kindergarten year in their overall reading and mathematics knowledge and skills? What gains are children making in specific knowledge and skills (e.g., recognizing letters, recognizing numbers)?

  • Wisconsin Culturally Responsive Education for All (CREATE) Initiative - Training and Enhancement Initiative

    The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction contracted with AIR to provide a comprehensive evaluation of its Culturally Responsive Education for All: Training and Enhancement (CREATE) initiative during its first three years of implementation. AIR employed a qualitative case study design to assess program implementation and to determine the effect participation in the CREATE initiative had on districts’ capacities to provide culturally responsive education and to implement policies and practices designed to close achievement gaps and reduce disproportionality in special education.

  • Texas Ninth Grade Transition and Intervention (TNGTI) Grant Program: January 2011 Evaluation Report

    The Texas Ninth Grade Transition and Intervention Program was designed provide supports to academically at-risk students as they transition into high school. Targeted students attend a summer program prior to their freshman year and are connected with appropriate interventions, as needed, once the school year begins. The Texas Education Agency contracted with AIR to provide a formative and summative evaluation of the statewide initiative. The AIR team employed a qualitative case study design to track program implementation and a multilevel propensity score matching approach to examine program effectiveness.

  • Building Capacity for Accelerated Reform: The Fresno–Long Beach Learning Partnership as a Leadership Strategy

    This second in a series of briefs on the Fresno-Long Beach Learning Partnership focuses on the leadership practices of Fresno Unified Superintendent Michael Hanson and Long Beach Unified Superintendent Christopher Steinhauser and the ways in which their partnership strengthens the strategies they employ.

  • Connecting Research About English Language Learners to Practice

    This Connecting Research to Practice brief helps educators make informed decisions about English language learners (ELLs) by providing an overview of key research findings, highlighting federal policies related to ELLs, outlining district-level and school-level action opportunities, and listing resources that offer more information.

  • Texas Principal Excellence Program (TxPEP)

    In this comprehensive evaluation of the Texas Principal Excellence Program (TxPEP), a set of statewide reforms aimed at developing strong and effective school leaders, AIR used a mixed-methods approach to provide the Texas Education Agency (TEA) with summative and formative feedback about the impact of TxPEP on principal leadership ability, student performance and outcomes, and teacher retention. For the summative part of the evaluation, the AIR team used a quasi-experimental interrupted time series design, controlling for differences between treatment and comparison principals, their schools, and their students with covariates.

  • Using NAEP, the “Nation’s Report Card,” to Assess the Student Proficiency Standards Set by States

    The complex analysis compares the various, independently set student proficiency standards set by states with those of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), commonly known as the “nation’s report card.” The results offer a way to assess the relative rigor of the adequate yearly progress (AYP) standards set by states under NCLB. This study, using 2005 and 2007 math and reading assessments for grades 4 and 8, was conducted by AIR for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

  • Title I Implementation: Update on Recent Evaluation Findings

    This report provides a summary of findings from Title I evaluation studies that have become available after the publication of the National Assessment of Title I final report in 2007.

  • Becoming an Educated Consumer of Research

    This paper is a primer from which practitioners can draw when they are faced with new and unfamiliar research. It is an attempt to flesh out the most important aspects of quality research and to explain how those not trained in advanced research methods can be effective consumers of education research.

  • WWC Phase I Computation Tools 4-15-10

    This Excel file accompanies A Practical Guide on Designing and Conducting Rigorous Impact Studies in Education: Lessons Learned from the What Works Clearinghouse (Phase I) (Song & Herman, 2009), a paper written with the support from the William T. Grant Foundation.

  • A Practical Guide on Designing and Conducting Impact Studies in Education: Lessons Learned From the What Works Clearinghouse (Phase I)

    This paper serves as a quick reference guide for researchers who design and conduct impact studies in education and related fields. Information presented in this paper may also help research users make better informed judgments about the quality of the research and the credibility of the evidence produced from the research.