Program Evaluation and Education Research (PEER) Group

Following the push to improve science literacy and implement science education programs in the 1970s, organizations such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) have worked fervently to develop programs aimed at reforming science education and increasing science literacy among America’s students. The emergence of teacher-scientist partnerships in K-12 classrooms has proven influential in broadening teachers’ content knowledge, understanding of scientific inquiry, and increasing teachers’ confidence in their abilities to teach science. Unfortunately, research exploring how these partnerships impact teachers’ identities, in general, and teachers’ self-efficacy, pedagogical practices, and identities as scientists, more specifically, has remained limited.

The NC ASSISTments Replication Study began in the 2017-18 school year and aimed to replicate the findings from a prior study conducted in Maine. That study found that the students of 7th-grade mathematics teachers who used ASSISTments for homework scored significantly higher on the Terra Nova mathematics exam than the students of teachers who did not use ASSISTments. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic forced North Carolina’s schools to move to all-remote instruction in March 2020 and the End-of-Grade exams were canceled, which made the replication study impossible to complete. This forced a change in the ASSISTments study and a re-evaluation of what researchers could learn about the use of ASSISTments in schools in North Carolina. Using surveys and interviews, researchers at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation conducted a case study of teachers’ use of ASSISTments in in-person instruction and in remote instruction, both during the NC ASSISTments Replication Study and outside of the study.

In order to better understand the current state of the Arlington Public Schools' 1:1 program transition, the district partnered with the Friday Institute Research and Evaluation (FIRE) team at North Carolina State University to conduct a small-scale study. The purpose of the study was to identify implementation successes and challenges and to signal opportunities for program growth moving forward.

Despite decades of school reform initiatives focused on closing the racialized achievement gap, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students continue to experience systemic barriers to a…

This report tells the story of the development of the Aligning Educational Efforts initiative, which was created to help Alexander, Burke, and Catawba Counties better connect and coordinate education and workforce goals across their region. The John M. Belk Endowment commissioned this report to capture lessons learned from that experience and to provide guidance for other North Carolina communities that want to develop similar plans for their regions. While some of the strategies and lessons learned highlighted in this report are specific to conditions in the region for which the plan was developed, we believe that many of them will be useful in a wide array of community contexts.

Digital inequities—or the divide amongst students who have and do not have access to digital resources —has become a national concern among K-12 educators in recent years. Research has documented the impacts of differential access to technology, however, as many districts and schools across the country move closer to fully transitioning to digital-age learning, digital inequity among K-12 students has become a more salient concern.

This pilot study, funded by a Friday Institute and NC State College of Education Catalyst Grant, set out to examine how early childhood education (ECE) programs in North Carolina community colleges navigated the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction In 2019, myFutureNC announced the postsecondary attainment goal of having two million North Carolinians between the ages of 25-44 hold a high-quality credential or…

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the suspension of face-to-face instruction in schools around the globe, requiring schools and educators to begin teaching online with little to no time for professional development to aid them in the transition. Literature nationwide reveals that while educators transitioned quickly from traditional face-to-face learning to digital platforms for remote teaching, many were ill-prepared, and in too many instances educational experiences were deficient in best practices for online learning (Foulger et al., 2020). This study (Insight Study), an exploratory qualitative study, was conducted to better understand the classroom, school and district-level challenges North Carolina educators were facing one year into the pandemic. A total of 18 educators participated in the study, including classroom educators across nine disciplines, representing seven of the eight educational districts in North Carolina. Data were collected from 60-minute semi-structured individual interviews and focus groups facilitated virtually via Zoom during fall 2021. Overwhelmingly, study participants wanted more support for themselves and their colleagues concerning engaging with their students given their “new normal” of COVID-19. They shared their current areas of growth, ways in which they believe the current political landscape is impacting these areas of growth, and which online professional development design features they feel are most impactful to their growth and development.

This brief highlights lessons learned from the MMTIC® Initiative at Combs during the 2020-21 school year, based on the information found in the MMTIC® at Combs Elementary Year 3 Summative Brief.

This summative implementation and impact brief highlight key activities from the Murphy-Meisgeier Type Indicator for Children (MMTIC®) Initiative at A.B. Combs Leadership Magnet Elementary (Combs) during the 2020-21 school year. Given the context of the COVID-19 global pandemic and the shift to virtual and hybrid learning, this brief will outline implementation successes and continued challenges as well as the impact of the program on teachers and students. The brief concludes with three lessons learned for future implementation sites.

This policy brief extends the work of the 2022 NC PreK-12 Literacy & Equity Summit. It draws from a statewide educator questionnaire and focus group data to put forward six recommendations to strengthen North Carolina's Literacy Learning Ecosystem.

Published in spring 2022, Meeting the Moment: Strategic Recommendations for Literacy & Equity in North Carolina centers educator voices toward providing insights into the Literacy…

This brief highlights nine key lessons from the case study “Becoming Embedded In What We Do” The Implementation and Impact of the Learning Differences Program at Centennial Campus Magnet Middle School in Raleigh, North Carolina. In analyzing the data, the Friday Institute found nine key lessons from CCMMS Learning Differences program implementation that may help future schools and districts as they design their implementation strategies, namely:

This evaluation report—the fourth and final one commissioned by the North Carolina State Board of Education—summarizes qualitative results from the third year of the initiative and quantitative analyses from the first two years of implementation. In general, most of the qualitative indicators were again positive, and in the areas for which one-year and two-year quantitative estimations were possible there also were continuing signs of positive outcomes.

Background and Purpose In 2016, the North Carolina General Assembly provided support for school districts across North Carolina to propose and implement pilot advanced teaching…

In this Friday Institute Education Brief, the authors break down current recommendations and distinct action steps to continue work on the six key areas of the North Carolina Digital Learning Plan.

This case study examines in-depth the participating districts in Cohort 3 of the 2021 Early Learning Network (ELN), an inter-district network focused on redesigning learning environments to better address the early learning needs of vulnerable children. Over the course of the 2021 calendar year, The Innovation Project (TIP) and The Friday Institute developed and implemented this network and provided individual coaching for district leaders.

This report details the impact of the Program Evaluation and Education Research (PEER) Internship Program for Undergraduate Students during the 2021-22 academic year and provides recommendations for program improvement.

This brief summarizes the pilot year evaluation report that details the implementation and impact of the Program Evaluation and Education Research (PEER) internship program for undergraduate students. Findings suggest that the program was successful in accomplishing its three goals.

This evaluation report details the implementation and impact of this program during its pilot year. Findings suggest that the program was successful in accomplishing its three goals.

Massive Online Open Courses for Educators (MOOC-Eds) provide a new form of professional development for educators that balances research-based practices for high-quality professional development with new types of social learning. In this paper we consider the value that educators find through their participation in a Learning Differences MOOC-Ed and examine the design elements of the MOOC-Ed that supported their growth and impact on practice.

This case study details the implementation and impact of the Learning Differences program at Manning Elementary School (MES) in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. Section one provides an overview of the Learning Differences program. Section two describes how the Learning Differences program was implemented at MES and how data were collected. Section three draws on qualitative and quantitative data to illustrate the program’s impact on MES teachers and students. Section four discusses the seven key lessons learned from the implementation process. The authors intend for this case study to be a practical resource that schools and districts can reference as they implement their own learning differences initiatives.

From January-December 2021, five school districts participated in The Innovation Project’s (TIP) Early Learning Network, an initiative that centers equity in addressing vulnerable children’s learning needs. Participants on district teams underwent the Liberatory Design Process—a seven step approach to centering equity in reimagining and redesigning educational interventions. Researchers from the Program Evaluation and Education Research (PEER) Group from the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation sought to better understand (1) how the design process impacted district teams and (2) the supports and barriers to design thinking and how to improve the design thinking process. Through case study methodology that incorporated focus group interviews, one-on-one interviews and artifact analysis, the researchers found that notions of accountability and intentionality, the awareness of self and others, and the development of community partnerships were impactful for districts conducting this equity work. Further, intradistrict dynamics, the availability of resources, team-level dynamics and non-linear processes frequently acted as supports and barriers to successful implementation of the Liberatory Design Process.