Special Issue of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis

“Research Using Longitudinal Student Data Systems: Findings, Lessons, and Prospects”

Issue Editors: Mark Berends and Susan Dynarski

Expected Publication Date: 2014

Over the past decade, there has been an explosion in the availability to education researchers of large-scale longitudinal, student-level data sets. Chicago, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas were leaders in the move to open these databases to researchers. The Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, through a variety of funding initiatives, has encouraged researchers to partner with states, districts, and other education practitioners to use the data to develop research that can inform education policy. IES points to the need for these research partnerships in a recent publication:

The Institute recognizes that evidence-based answers for all of the decisions that education decision-makers and practitioners must make every day do not yet exist. Furthermore, education leaders cannot always wait for scientists to provide answers. One solution for this dilemma is for the education system to integrate rigorous evaluation into the core of its activities. The Institute believes that the education system needs to be at the forefront of a learning society—a society that plans for and invests in learning how to improve its education programs by turning to rigorous evidence when it is available and by insisting that, when we cannot wait for evidence of effectiveness, the program or policy we decide to implement be evaluated as part of the implementation. (Request for Applications, CFDA Number 84.305E)

In a 2014 special issue of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis (EEPA), we will publish original research findings that have emerged from these kinds of partnerships. We are soliciting papers from researchers who have worked with states, districts, and other practitioners to formulate research questions and use administrative data sets to answer those questions. We are especially interested in studies that have used experimental and quasi-experimental methods to extract causal relationships from such data. For example:

• What is the effect of a state’s need-based grant program on college attendance, choice, and persistence?
• How does a mandatory algebra requirement in secondary schools affect high school graduation and college attainment?

We also welcome descriptive, exploratory papers that suggest directions for policy, research, and future partnerships and answer questions such as:

• What are the achievement gaps between poor and nonpoor children from kindergarten to high school and into postsecondary education?
• What lessons have researchers and practitioners learned about forming and maintaining research partnerships that they can pass on to future collaborators?