The Technical Working Group (TWG) is an external review committee intended to ensure that the quality of science produced by REL Appalachia meets the standards of IES and the general scientific community. The TWG's role is to advise the Director, Deputy Director, REL Appalachia, and the study directors on issues of project design, implementation, analysis, and interpretation. Although the TWG's activities are primarily focused on the long-term rigorous studies, REL Appalachia intends to use the group to provide support on fast response projects on an as-needed basis.
REL Appalachia's TWG is modeled as a hub and spoke. The hub, which serves on the TWG for all studies, includes scientists with experience and expertise in a variety of methodological issues as well as with experience in the region.
Supplementing this core group will be a group of subject matter specialists (the spoke) recruited for specific studies. These subject matter experts will all be technically competent in the IES approach to research, but they will also have subject knowledge relevant for a particular study. In addition, spoke members may be recruited for TWG activities for advice on specific milestones of a study or throughout the entire study. No subject matter experts were recruited in Year One, but REL Appalachia will consult hub TWG members when making such additions.
Current Membership
Hans Bos, Ph.D.
Dr. Bos is the CEO and a Principal Research Analyst at Berkley Policy Associates (BPA). He has more than ten years' experience designing and conducting program evaluations, policy studies, and social demonstration projects. Before joining BPA in 2002, Dr. Bos was a Senior Research Associate at the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC), where he led and contributed to prominent national studies of welfare-to-work initiatives, demonstration projects serving teen parents and disadvantaged youth, and research projects focusing on the effects of welfare programs on parents and children. Dr. Bos is a recognized expert in program evaluation design, statistical analysis of evaluation data, and welfare and youth policy analysis. Recently, he has specialized in the analysis of developmental outcomes for children in the context of social interventions targeted at their parents.
At BPA, Dr. Bos participates in several research projects as a Co-Principal Investigator and advises a number of other projects as a senior reviewer. He fulfills such senior roles in the following BPA projects:
- California Welfare Time Limits Study
- State of Louisiana's Temporary Assistance and Needy Families (TANF) Evaluation
- Evaluation of the Model Self-Help Centers Pilot Program
- Evaluation of Safe Passages
- Redesign of GED Annual Statistical Report
- Understanding the Role of Intermediaries under Workforce Investment Agencies
Laura Desimone, Ph.D.
Dr. Desimone is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Education at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. She has studied how state, district, and school- level policy can better promote changes in teaching that lead to improved student achievement and to closing the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students. Her work contributes to theory, and informs policy and classroom practice. Her research covers three main areas: policy effects on teaching and learning, policy implementation, and the improvement of methods for studying policy effects and implementation (e.g., improving the quality of surveys and the appropriate use of multiple methodologies). She studies all levels of the system (national, state, district, school, and classroom), and focuses on three policies at the forefront of education reform: standards-based reform, comprehensive school reform, and teachers' professional development. Dr. Desimone is the Principal Investigator on a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation on "How Does Induction and Continuing Professional Development Affect Middle School Mathematics Teachers' Instruction and Student Achievement?" She has also published extensively in the education research literature, practitioners' journals, and invited volumes.
Barbara Goodson, Ph.D.
Dr. Goodson is Principal Scientist and Abt Associate's most senior expert on child development and education research for the past 28 years. Trained at Stanford University in child development and evaluation, Dr. Goodson currently functions as a company-wide resource on design and measurement, specializing in research on early childhood, including technical issues in measurement and assessment of young children. Currently Dr. Goodson is directing studies of a range of multi-site studies of early childhood language and literacy interventions, which are being tested in sites nationwide.
These include the fourth national evaluation of the Even Start program, which is a randomized cluster study for the Department of Education of two scientifically based language and literacy interventions for preschoolers, in a national sample of Even Start projects. Also, Dr. Goodson is directing an impact evaluation for Houghton-Mifflin of its new preschool curriculum, HM Pre-K. She just completed a randomized study for the Child Care Bureau of three language and literacy curriculum in a sample of subsidized childcare centers in Miami-Dade County. For these studies, Dr. Goodson co-authored a state-of-the-art observation system for evaluating the quality of instructional practices in literacy and language development in early childhood programs and parenting education.
Throughout her research career, Dr. Goodson has been responsible for selecting and developing measures of (a) parent outcomes, including parenting behavior, parent attitudes, and family functioning; (b) child and youth outcomes, including cognitive development and school performance, social behavior and risk behavior, physical development and health; and (c) the quality of program services. Dr. Goodson has synthesized results of educational interventions, and she has co-authored a review of promising practices in parent education programs, a review of two-generation programs, and a meta-analysis of the impact data from evaluations of two-generation programs. She also was a senior technical reviewer on a recent meta-analysis of the effects on early childhood education. Previously Dr. Goodson was involved in an early childhood study comparing the quality of the environments in three types of care for children from low income families: Head Start, Title 1 pre-kindergartens, and community child care.
Rebecca Maynard, Ph.D.
Since 1993, Dr. Maynard has been University Trustee Chair Professor of Education and Social Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. She teaches courses in research methods, economics, and education policy, directs the University's Institute for Education Sciences (IES) Predoctoral Training Program in Interdisciplinary Methods for Education Research, and maintains an active research agenda focused on youth risk reduction and skills attainment. Since 2004, she also has served as Senior Program Associate with the William T. Grant Foundation.
Prior to joining the University of Pennsylvania faculty, Dr. Maynard was Senior Vice President of Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., (MPR). During her years at MPR, she directed many large-scale social experiments and applied research studies examining issues related to welfare policy, employment and training policy, services for teenage parents, teenage pregnancy prevention, and child care policy.
Dr. Maynard is a member and past President of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, as well as a member of the American Economics Association, the American Education Research Association, and the Population Association of America. She serves on numerous advisory panels, including the Academic Board for the Western International School of Shanghai (WISS), the Research and Effective Program Task Force of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, the editorial boards for the Center for the Future of Children, and the Technical Review Team for the What Works Clearinghouse.
Samuel Stringfield, Ph.D.
Dr. Stringfield is the Academic Director of the Nystrand Center of Excellence in Education, a Distinguished University Scholar, and a Professor in the Departments of Teaching and Learning and Leadership, Foundations, and Human Resource Education at the University of Louisville. He was formerly a Principal Research Scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Social Organization of Schools (CSOS). He served as co-director of the Systemic Supports for School Reform section of the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed At Risk (CRESPAR). Stringfield is also co-director of the Program on Integrated Reform at the University of California at Santa Cruz' Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence (CREDE). He is founding editor of the Journal of Education for Students Placed At Risk (JESPAR), and a member of the City of Baltimore's New Board of School Commissioners.
Stringfield has authored over 100 articles, chapters, and books. His research focuses on designs for improving programs within schools (e.g., The Special Strategies Studies, Stringfield et al., 1997), for improving whole schools, (e.g., Bold Plans for School Restructuring: The New American Schools Designs, Stringfield, Ross, & Smith, 1996) for improving systemic supports for schools serving disadvantaged schools, and international comparisons of school effects.
Prior to coming to the University of Louisville, Stringfield worked as a teacher, a program evaluator, a Tulane University faculty member, and as coordinator of the Denver office of the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. As a Kellogg Fellow, Stringfield studied the politics and economics of school improvement in the United States, Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Stringfield has served as the chairman of the School Effectiveness and Improvement special interest group and is on the annual meeting committee of the American Educational Research Association. He was 1997 program chair and 1999 program co-chair of the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI). Dr. Stringfield serves or has served as a reviewer for a variety of educational journals including: American Educational Research Journal, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Educational Researcher, Elementary School Journal, Journal of Classroom Interaction (Editorial Board member), Journal of Teacher Education, Psychological Bulletin, Review of Educational Research, School Effectiveness and School Improvement (Editorial Board member), and Urban Education.
