The science of learning and development (SoLD) is a cross-disciplinary body of knowledge that describes how people learn and develop. AIR is part of the SoLD Alliance, which serves as a resource to connect and support leaders in research, practice, and policy to transform America’s education systems and achieve equity ...
The World Bank, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) designed a research program addressing how to improve education and learning outcomes for forcibly displaced populations and host communities facing poverty and other hardships. The World Bank contracted AIR ...
U.S. businesses are facing challenges filling so-called “middle-skills” jobs in trades, telecommunications, health care, IT, and similar professions. Career and Technical Education (CTE) is an existing and promising pathway that can address this gap.
In a longitudinal, quasi-experimental study that spanned more than a decade, AIR found that attending a high school with an explicit focus on deeper learning resulted in positive short-term outcomes, but few longer-term outcomes. In this Q&A, AIR Principal Researcher Kristina Zeiser and Senior Researcher Catherine Bitter share insights about ...
Parents, teachers, schools, districts, states, and especially students all want schools that prepare graduates to thrive in the 21st century. In this blog post, Anne Mishkind asks what it means to be "college and career ready."
Ensuring strong alignment between quality standards and afterschool programs requires creative thinking, planning, and collaboration. Afterschool programs that align professional development with quality standards can support staff learning and sustain continuous improvement by reinforcing professional standards and practices. ...
Student agency, or the ability to manage one’s learning, can have significant effects on academic achievement as students take an active role in seeking and internalizing new knowledge. The purpose of this study was to identify the instructional practices that may be useful for the development of different aspects of ...
The American Institutes for Research (AIR) has issued a policy brief summarizing the findings of its research on structuring instructional resources and practices for full-day kindergarten programs to increase children's reading achievement and better prepare them for first grade.
Given persistent failure rates and mounting student debt, how prepared students are to enter and succeed in college is suddenly everyone’s business. According to Mark Schneider, in this blog post, ACT data shows many students ready to leave for college are not ready academically in at least one area. ...
Despite efforts by the Mozambican government to improve access to pre-primary education, many challenges remain in the education system overall and in pre-primary education. AIR conducted a mixed-methods experimental evaluation of a pilot program being implemented to improve children’s educational outcomes through a pre-primary intervention in target districts and communities ...