Past Presentations & Trainings

Here's where to find us in the coming months.

Research Connections at NAEYC's National Institute for Early Childhood Professional Development

Talking About Research in Early Childhood Education: Resources for Research Communication

Dr. Lee Kreader of Research Connections will be presenting at the Research Symposium Session at NAEYC's National Institute for Early Childhood Professional Development. The presenters at this session will review prominent early childhood education research resources, as well as engage in a dialogue about areas of need and strategies for meeting the need for clear research communication within the early childhood education field. Kyle Snow of NAEYC and Ellen Frede of the National Institute for early Education Research will also be presenting. This presentation will take place at 10:30 am on Tuesday, June 14, in the Rhode Island Convention Center-Rotunda.

Introducing the Research Connections School-Age Children Faculty Teaching Module: A Tool for Faculty and Community-Based Trainers

Ms. Sharmila Lawrence of Research Connections, along with Lori Connors-Tadros and Jenifer Holland of The Finance Project and Marilou Hyson of George Mason University, will be presenting at NAEYC's National Institute for Early Childhood Professional Development on the topic of school-aged child care. The presentation will focus on the new School-Age Faculty Teaching Module, a resource to increase students' and providers' knowledge of the research relevant to improving program quality. This presentation will take place at 2 pm on Tuesday, June 14, at the Westin Providence-Narragansett C.

2011-05-31

Free Data Training Workshop: Evaluating the Impact of Publicly Funded Early Childhood Programs on Children and Families

June 13-15, 2011
Ann Arbor, MI
The goal of this workshop is to provide training in the methods used to conduct impact analyses with a focus on the publicly funded Head Start, Early Head Start, and Child Care Subsidy Programs.  Recognizing the need for information that will help states and communities allocate limited resources as effectively as possible, the workshop is designed to assist researchers in accessing and analyzing publicly available early childhood data in determining the outcomes of programs and policies on the children and families served by them.

The workshop will feature three data collections:
  • Early Head Start Research and Evaluation (EHSRE) Study
  • Evaluation of Child Care Subsidy Strategies:  Miami-Dade County 
  • Head Start Impact Study 2002-2006
The workshop will feature one dataset per day and will be divided between classroom lecture/discussion and computer lab work during which students may explore the data through hands-on computer exercise. Participants will learn the studies' purpose, methods, and key findings, as they gain exposure to these data and ways to manipulate them.  Participants are expected to have a basic understanding of secondary data, fundamental data analysis skills and a substantive interest in early child care and development.  Instruction and examples will primarily be done in SAS with some assistance for SPSS and Stata programs.

Enrollment is limited.  All applications must include a curriculum vita/resume and cover letter summarizing research interests and experiences and a description of the applicant’s ability to work with and analyze large datasets. Graduate students, post-doctoral scholars and junior faculty/researchers are eligible to be considered for one of a limited number of stipends to help with travel and housing costs.  To be considered for one of these awards, applicants must (a) make a stipend request in the letter and (b) submit a letter of support from a senior faculty member, supervisor, mentor, or advisor.

Instructors:
Cristofer Price, Abt. Associates, Inc.
Barbara D. Goodson, Abt. Associates, Inc.
Camilla Heid, Westat, Inc.
Ronna Cook, Westat, Inc.
Lorraine McKelvey, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

Applications are available at:  www.icpsr.umich.edu/sumprog 
Application deadline: May 6, 2011

2011-04-10

Head Start Impact Study Online Training and Q & A Materials

The HSIS Online Training took place February 23, 2011 during which Westat, Inc. introduced the Head Start Impact Study by conducting a live data training via webinar. The training continued February 24-25 with a Questions & Answers portion where researchers could
Click on the link to access other materials from the HSIS Online Training and Q&A.
screenshot of blog

2011-02-23

Free Data Training Workshop at the 2011 Society For Research in Child Development Biennial Meeting

Workshop: Introducing the Head Start Impact Study
Date: March 30, 2011
Time: 2 PM - 5 PM

This preconference workshop provided an overview of the Head Start Impact Study (HSIS) design and methodology and introduce potential data users on how to use the HSIS datasets for secondary data analysis.  HSIS is a national, longitudinal study that involves approximately 5,000 three and four year old preschool children across 84 nationally representative grantee/delegate agencies.  HSIS is aimed at determining how Head Start affects the school readiness of children participating in the program as compared to children not enrolled in Head Start and under which conditions Head Start works best and for which children.


Procedures for extracting data, using appropriate weights for analyses, and running descriptive statistics will be discussed.  A project description and reports from the data can be found at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/hs/impact_study.

These data are made available for secondary analysis through Research Connections.  Along with other data sets available through Research Connections, the HSIS data are well-suited for use by graduate students exploring research opportunities and researchers analyzing the development of young children.


2011-02-03

Free Data Training Workshop at 2011 SRCD

Workshop: Introducing the Head Start Impact Study
Date: March 30, 2011
Time: 2 PM - 5 PM

This preconference workshop will provide an overview of the Head Start Impact Study (HSIS) design and methodology and introduce potential data users on how to use the HSIS datasets for secondary data analysis.  HSIS is a national, longitudinal study that involves approximately 5,000 three and four year old preschool children across 84 nationally representative grantee/delegate agencies.  HSIS is aimed at determining how Head Start affects the school readiness of children participating in the program as compared to children not enrolled in Head Start and under which conditions Head Start works best and for which children.

REGISTRATION:  There is no fee to attend this workshop, but space is limited and advance registration is required.  You must be registered for the Society for Research in Child Development to participate.  Workshop slots will be awarded on a first-come/first-served basis.  To register, send an email to: contact@researchconnections.org.  A follow-up message will be sent with additional information/instructions.

More Information

2011-02-03

FACES 2006 Online Training and Q & A

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) is an ongoing, longitudinal study of Head Start program characteristics and child outcomes, using nationally representative samples of Head Start programs, children, and families. FACES data are made available for secondary analysis through Research Connections and are well-suited for use by graduate students exploring research opportunities, instructors interested in bringing large datasets of national scope into the classroom, and researchers analyzing the development of young children.

Online Training and Q&A Schedule


Wednesday - Friday, November 17-19

Continuing opportunity to ask the experts your questions.

While exploring these topics, be sure to check out the additional resources available on the right side menu panel (e.g. power point slides, guidance for selecting weights, etc).


screenshot of the F A C E S blog


Engage in these online events to:

  • Take advantage of having direct access to the FACES data experts!
  • Learn about the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) data archive
  • Increase your understanding of the design of FACES 2006
  • Learn about the technical issues associated with analyzing the data from FACES 2006
  • Review the data organization and features and receive tips for working with FACES data
  • Become a FACES data user and participate in the FACES data community

Accessing the FACES 2006 Data Collection

  • Documentation - The FACES 2006 documentation can be downloaded directly from our website.
  • Data - To protect respondent privacy, the FACES 2006 Cohort Data are restricted from general dissemination. To obtain the raw data files, researchers must agree to the terms and conditions of the Restricted Data Use Agreement.

2010-11-11

1) Summer Data Workshop: Using Administrative Data to Conduct Research on Public Early Childhood Programs, June 2-4, 2010

The goal of this Research Connections workshop, part of the ICPSR Summer Program series, is for participants to become comfortable with the methods used to analyze administrative data. This includes diagnosing problems with the data, cleaning the data, unduplicating and linking administrative data and survey data, and analyzing it.  The workshop will focus substantively on the data required to understand the utilization of early childhood programs, including subsidized child care, Head Start, and the data needed to understand family circumstances, including TANF and UI wage data. This workshop is designed to address the growing interest in using early childhood data.  States are anticipating major new federal investments in education data to strengthen the availability and quality of interoperable early childhood data systems that link with K-12 data, and enhanced capacity to use data to improve children's school readiness and reduce disparities in early learning opportunities and outcomes.  The aim of this workshop is to teach skills necessary to competently use these evolving data systems.

The workshop objectives include:
-Converting data from a government source into something that can be analyzed in a typical statistical package.  Skills taught will include secure transporting of the data, checking that all the data has been properly received, cleaning the data, and then finally preparing the final datasets.
-Introducing concepts of record-linkage.
-Introduce concepts of linking survey data to administrative data.
-Summarizing transaction data into summary records.
-Reviewing approaches to analyzing these data to answer common questions. We will explore point-in-time and longitudinal questions about subsidy use and its effects. This section draws on the experience of various members of the research team of the multi-state study, Employment Outcomes for Low-Income Families Receiving Child Care Subsidies in Illinois, Maryland, and Texas (2009).
    Participants are encouraged to bring their own datasets on which to learn.  Synthesized datasets will also be available for practice.

    The workshop is free, but enrollment is limited.  All applications must include a vita and cover letter summarizing research interests and experiences. Admitted graduate students, post-doctoral scholars and junior faculty/researchers will be considered for one of a limited number of stipends to help with travel and housing costs.  To be considered for one of these awards, applicants must also submit a letter of support from a senior faculty member, supervisor, mentor, or advisor.

    Applications are available at http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/sumprog/

    Deadline to apply is April 16, 2010.

    Instructors:
    -Robert Goerge, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago
    -Lucy Bilaver, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago
    -Daniel Schroeder, Ray Marshall Center University of Texas at Austin

    2010-03-11

    Free Summer Data Workshop: Examining Quality in Publicly Supported Early Childhood Programs

    Date and time: July 13 - 16, 2009

    Location: Ann Arbor, MI

    This workshop is designed to train researchers to access, analyze, and use datasets to examine quality in early childhood settings, focusing on quality in publicly-funded programs: state prekindergarten, Head Start, Early Head Start.

    The workshop will begin with a thorough discussion of the concepts of structural and process quality in early childhood education. It will examine different instruments used to measure quality, including their pros and cons, psychometric properties, and aspects of quality they may not measure. Further, it will expand the discussion of quality to include other variables available in the datasets that can be used to examine structural and process quality. These include more proximal variables like teachersÕ education and training, class size, high quality provider-child, child-child, and provider-parent interactions

    Featured datasets include: the National Center for Early Development and Learning Multi-State Study of Pre-Kindergarten, 2001-2003; Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Study (EHSRE) Pre-K Wave; Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES): Early Childhood Longitudinal Study: Birth Cohort (ECLS-B).

    Participants will learn the studies' purpose, methods, and key findings, as they gain exposure to these data and ways to manipulate them. Participants are expected to have a basic understanding of secondary data, fundamental data analysis skills in SPSS, SAS, or Stata, and a substantive interest in early child care and development.

    Enrollment is limited. Researchers interested in quality issues in child care and early education are encouraged to apply. All applications much include a curriculum vita and cover letter summarizing research interests and experiences. Admitted graduate students, post-doctoral scholars, and junior faculty/researchers will be considered for one of a limited number of stipends to help with travel and housing costs. To be considered for one of these awards, submit a letter of support from a senior faculty member, mentor, or advisor.

    The application deadline is May 15, 2009.

    More information / apply here

    2009-03-16

    Free Data Training Workshop at the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Biennial Conference

    Date and time: April 1, 2009, 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM

    Locations: Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Biennial Conference, Denver, Colorado

    This workshop will provide an overview of the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) design and methodology and introduce potential data users on how to use the FACES datasets for secondary data analysis. FACES is an ongoing series of longitudinal studies of Head Start program characteristics and child outcomes, using nationally representative samples of Head Start programs, children, and families. Longitudinal data from three cohorts completed to date (FACES 1997, 2000, 2003) are available for secondary analysis. Procedures for extracting data, using appropriate weights for analyses, and running descriptive statistics will also be demonstrated. A project description, instruments, and previous reports from the data can be found at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/hs/faces/index.html.

    FACES data are ideal for examining relationships between factors at the program, classroom and individual child level, including how indicators of quality, curricula and teacher characteristics relate to child cognitive and social outcomes. These data are appropriate for hierarchical linear models and growth models designed to test hypotheses about the links between program characteristics and classroom-level indicators of instructional quality. The workshop will review the data organization and features (e.g., weighting characteristics), and present trial analyses to discuss decision processes required when using the dataset.

    These data are made available for secondary analysis through Research Connections. Along with other data sets available through Research Connections, the FACES data are well-suited for use by graduate students exploring research opportunities, instructors interested in bringing large national data into the classroom, and researchers analyzing the development of young children.

    NOTE: Workshop participants are encouraged to bring their own laptops equipped with DVD drive in order to explore codebooks during the workshop. There is no fee to attend this workshop, but space is limited and advance registration is required. You must be registered for the Society for Research in Child Development to participate. Workshop slots will be awarded on a first-come/first-served basis. To register, send mail to: contact@researchconnections.org.

    2009-03-14

    2) Data User Training for the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, August 4-6, 2010

     This workshop is designed to train researchers to access, analyze, and use the datasets of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) -- a longitudinal, comprehensive study of the development of children in the context of their families and out-of-home environments -- which collected data from 1991 to 2007. Covered topics include the conceptual framework of the study, its methodological design, documentation of research instruments, and documentation of the psychometric properties of a large subset of variables included in the analytical datasets and with the raw datasets. Participants will learn about the most appropriate variables for their analyses and about cutting-edge analytical methods. The expected outcome of the course is for participants to be able to independently use and train others to use the SECCYD databases for original scholarship and publication. Participants are expected to have a basic understanding of secondary data, fundamental data analysis skills in SPSS,SAS, or Stata, and a substantive interest in early child care and youth development. Applications are due May 14, 2010.

    2009-03-08