Research

Neag School faculty continued to be highly engaged in seeking extramural funds to support their scholarship.

Research Center 2023-24 Highlights

The Neag School’s Research Centers serve as hubs of interdisciplinary activity that strive to further the School’s educational, research, and public engagement mission. As such, they play a vital role in contributing to the Neag School’s visibility through interactions with national, state, and local communities as well as industry and foundations.

$20.5M

in awarded grant funding

10 Federal

2 State

7 Private

$16.1M

in grant expenditures for FY24

Center for Behavioral Education and Research logo. [Links to CBER site.]Center for Behavioral Education and Research (CBER)

CBER is a research and education center in the Neag School of Education whose mission is to conduct rigorous research and translate and disseminate empirically supported practices that promote equity and improve educational outcomes for all learners, especially those with or at risk for learning and behavioral difficulties. Learn more about CBER.

2023-24 Center Highlights

  • Broad Public Engagement: CBER faculty engage with educators, schools, families, communities, and agencies on reciprocal research and implementation partnerships at the local, state, national, and international levels.
    • CBER faculty partners with hundreds of schools across Connecticut
    • CBER’s reach extends to schools in all states and U.S. territories
    • CBER sponsors an ongoing series of conferences, talks, and events to engage the Neag School and UConn communities as well as serve the needs of the larger educational community of parents, teachers, and leaders
  • Research Impact: CBER faculty are productive scholars, as evidenced by the following highlights over the past 15 years:
    • $60M in federal and state research grants and contracts
    • $800K per faculty per year
    • More than 4 publications per faculty per year
  • Collaborative and Informed Scholarship: CBER faculty form collaborative partnerships to inform and support scholarship and implementation.
    • Approximately a third of funding is from state/local contracts
  • Shaping Tomorrow’s Leaders: CBER faculty actively prepare and mentor leaders to shape the future of education.
    • CBER faculty have been awarded leadership grants of more than $5.5 million to prepare doctoral students
  • Events: CBER Researcher Scientists have sponsored conferences and events including the Postsecondary Disability Training Institute and the Northeast PBIS Leadership Forum

        Center for Education Policy Analysis, Research, and Evaluation (CEPARE)

        CEPARE is a member of the Education Policy Alliance, a nationwide network of university-based research centers and organizations. The center director is Morgaen Donaldson and the steering committee includes Bianca Montrosse-Moorhead, Kathleen Lynch, Megan Staples, Grace Player, Kenny Nienhusser, and Jennie Weiner. Learn more about CEPARE on its website.

        Center for Education Policy Analysis, Research, and Evaluation logo. [Links to CEPARE site.]

          2023-24 Highlights

          • The Center for Connecticut Education Research Collaboration (CCERC): CCERC has gained a national reputation for bridging the divide between research, policy, and practice. With Ajit Gopalakrishnan, Chief Performance Officer at the CSDE, Morgaen Donaldson co-leads the CCERC, which was funded initially through a $3 million ARP ESSER grant and will be continued through another $3 million grant in summer 2023. This Collaborative brings together researchers from across Connecticut’s universities to conduct important research. Findings from CCERC have been highlighted by The New York Times and the EduRecoveryHub, which produced, “Funding What Works in Education: Connecticut’s Unique Education Research Collaborative,” described in this interview with Morgaen Donaldson.
          • Rapid Research Briefs for Alliance Districts: With the support of AERA’s Education Research Service Project (ERSP) funding, the Center for Education Policy Analysis, Research, and Evaluation (CEPARE) produced short-duration, fast-turnaround Rapid Research Briefs (RRB) that investigate pressing issues in Connecticut’s Alliance Districts, 36 of the lowest-performing and lowest-resourced school districts in the state. These districts have faced numerous challenges, including student mobility, increasing student poverty, educator turnover, and declines in state funding over time. Many of these challenges were exacerbated by COVID. Alliance districts face unprecedented challenges in the current moment that give rise to numerous, urgent questions. These are the rapid research briefs created in 2024:
          • UConn Undergraduate Admissions: This ongoing evaluation of the test-optional undergraduate admissions pilot program is led by Morgaen Donaldson and includes Eric Loken, Catherina Villafuerte, and Kiah DeVona. The Annual Report Year 2 was completed in March 2024.
          • CEPARE Speaker Series in 2023-24:
            • Dr. Jessica Rigby, “Building a Sustainable Leadership Pipeline in School Districts.” Co-sponsored by Hartford Public Schools. March 18, 2024.
            • Dr. Olivia Chi, “Who becomes a teacher when entry requirements are reduced? An analysis of emergency licenses in Massachusetts” (with Andrew Bacher-Hicks, Ariel Tichnor-Wagner, and Sidrah Baloch). October 19, 2023.
            • Dr. Robert Schoen, “Lessons from the Field: Working with Educational Practitioners to Create Opportunities for Educational Research.” Co-sponsored by Neag’s Research Methods, Measurement, and Evaluation Program. April 19, 2024.

          Reading and Language Arts Center logo. [Links to RLAC About page.]Reading Language and Arts Center

          The Reading and Language Arts Center serves as a coordinating agency for the improvement of literacy instruction and literacy teacher education from the undergraduate through the doctoral levels. The center’s faculty provides graduate programs and courses within the Department of Curriculum and Instruction that offer concentrations in reading and language arts, including programs that lead to state certifications. Learn more about the center on its website.

          2023-24 Center Highlights

          Renzulli Center for Creativity, Giftedness, and Talent Development

          The mission of the Renzulli Center is to promote enjoyment, engagement, and enthusiasm for learning in teachers and students at all levels of education through high quality research and outreach on innovative teaching strategies. Our work in talent development and gifted education is based on practical applications of over four decades of research, as are the direct services we provide to teachers, administrators, researchers, and policy makers throughout the world. Learn more about the Renzulli Center on its website.

          Renzulli Center for Creativity, Gifted Education, and Talent Development logo. [Links to Renzulli Center site.]

          2023-24 Center Highlights

          • Currently, the Renzulli Center for Creativity, Gifted Education, and Talent Development is actively involved in research initiatives totaling over $16 million. This encompasses the National Center for Research on Gifted Education (NCRGE), the sole federally funded national center on gifted education, along with four 5-year Javits funded projects (three continuing and one new grant). Our investigations are focused on enhancing identification and services for underserved populations in gifted programs, developing professional learning materials and screening procedures to better serve students, improving identification practices for subject-specific and whole-grade acceleration, exploring the broader benefits of gifted education, and examining potential disparities in achievement based on teacher assignments.
          • Collaborating with the Belin-Blank Center at the University of Iowa, the Renzulli Center successfully hosted the 2024 Wallace Research Symposium on Talent Development at the University of Connecticut for the first time. This event attracted over 180 national and international researchers, facilitating the exchange of cutting-edge research insights.
          • Responding to the growing interest in Artificial Intelligence in education, the Center organized a Teaching and Learning with Technology conference in May tailored specifically for Connecticut educators, with a primary focus on AI applications in education. The event drew over 150 educators, fostering discussions on innovative approaches to integrating AI into educational practices.
          • Our commitment to expanding public engagement is evident through various initiatives. In addition to hosting four free webinars that collectively attracted over 1,000 registrants, we introduced four one-day Tastes of Confratute events throughout the academic year. Last summer, we successfully resumed our popular campus-based Confratute, offering both a four-day on-campus event and a three-day virtual counterpart. Together, these initiatives reached over 500 educators, significantly extending our impact in the field of education across the nation and around the world.
          • Dr. Catherine Little was elected president of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC), the nation’s largest professional organization dedicated to gifted education. Dr. Del Siegle, who directs the Center and the NCRGE, was honored as the Neag School’s 2024 Distinguished Researcher. Dr. James Kaufman was also featured multiple times in the New York Times on creativity-related topics.