Curriculum and Intellectual Support
Courses
Research designs and causal inference (Instructors: Guanglei Hong, and Ken Frank)
Measurement (Instructor: Yanyan Sheng)
Social network analysis/computational methods (Instructor: Kenneth Frank)
Multilevel modeling (Instructor: Steve Raudenbush)
Causal Moderation, Mediation, and Decomposition Analyses (Instructor: Guanglei Hong)
Guest Speaker Series
During each summer session, advisory board members and other guest speakers will be invited to discuss cutting-edge issues in STEM education research and conduct small group or individual meetings with Fellows. These interactions are meant to help Fellows expand their professional networks and develop leadership visions and skills.
Round-Table Lunch Discussions
During each summer session, the institute will organize round-table lunch sessions on a daily basis for community building. Each round table will be hosted by one of the instructors for discussing Fellows’ research plans, grant applications, or ongoing studies and brainstorming solutions to methodological problems that arise in these studies.
Follow-up Support
Following each summer session, Fellows will receive continuous methodological support from the project team and will maintain intellectual connections with each other as they develop new research projects or make progress in their ongoing studies. Fellows will be assigned to one of the instructors based on methodological and substantive interests. Each small group thus formed will meet to make a strategic plan for sustained engagement during the coming year. Fellows will be encouraged to stay in close touch with each other serving as peer mentors who commit to reading and commenting on draft papers and/or consulting on methodological issues that arise in the work.
Signature Project
The institute will organize a small-scale conference in the summer of year 3, at which all Fellows will present their signature projects and will further develop research collaborations. Fellows will have ample opportunities to transfer new methodological understanding to their own projects and obtain constructive feedback. The institute will emphasize publishing high-quality research in impactful venues and will offer individualized support throughout the process.
Timeline
| Project Year | Course Title | Number of Days |
| Year 1 (Common) | Pre-training session (virtual) | 3 |
| Research designs and causal inference: introduction | 1 | |
| Measurement: introduction | 1 | |
| Social network analysis and computational methods: introduction | 1 | |
| Multilevel modeling: introduction | 1 | |
| Causal moderation, mediation, and decomposition analyses: introduction | 1 | |
| Year 2 (Concurrent) | Research designs and causal inference: advanced topics | 1A |
| Measurement: advanced topics | 2B | |
| Multilevel modeling: advanced topics | 2B | |
| Social network analysis and computational methods: advanced topics | 2C | |
| Causal moderation, mediation, and decomposition analyses: advanced topics | 2C |