This article reports on initial findings from "Learning By Doing," a citizen science research project funded by a NSW DOE Strategic Research Grant. Our study aimed to understand the process of integrating citizen science into schools, the perceived outcomes and impacts for students, and ways to evaluate citizen science projects. In this…

A method called multi-attribute utility analysis (MAUA) provides a decision-making framework that facilitates comparative analysis of multiple real-world decision alternatives with unique complex attributes. Utility analysis as a measure of effectiveness has been minimally used by educational researchers to date, despite clear relevance in complex…

This dissertation presents two essays on econometric methods for program evaluation and policy choice. In Chapter 1, I develop a statistically optimal way of using data to make policy decisions when the performance of counterfactual policies is only partially identified. Specifically, I consider a class of statistical decision problems in which…

Many science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) outreach programs focus on children, but relatively few efforts are dedicated to voting-age populations. These groups are important to reach because misinformation about science is widespread and difficult to detect, often interfering with informed voting on science-related issues. Science…

Even after significant education turnaround efforts supported by federal and state agencies, achievement gaps between white students and students of color and students not living in poverty and students living in poverty persist (McFarland et al., 2018). Student academic outcomes are often driven by factors unrelated to teaching in classrooms…

Governments and private funders are placing increasing demands on postsecondary institutions and community-based organizations to account for the impacts from their collaborative research and learning efforts. In this article, we explore how best to account for impacts arising from the Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement project…

This case study report is for people interested in funding, managing, forming, or improving community partnerships. It provides an in-depth account of strategies associated with success in Community Collaboratives for Early Learning and Media, or CC-ELM. A national network of thirty CC-ELM--local partnerships among public media stations and…

Education in the arts continues to struggle for inclusion in PreK-12 classrooms as public schools face increasing challenges from high stakes testing, Common Core politics, and endless budget cuts. Advocates point to the growing body of research linking art education to academic achievement as justification for arts' continued inclusion in the…

Police trainings at museums have been a small but strong program within the museum field. Programs that provide youth and police the opportunity to engage one another in structured learning environments can enable those participants to share personal experiences, explore negative stereotypes, and discuss mutual perceptions of controversial topics…

External organizations offer schools projects with different content, so-called external school projects. This type of external projects is mainly implemented by people or an organization outside of the school. The projects may be within the framework of a nation's political aspirations. The educational goals of the projects are often…

Purpose: This paper describes the sustainability partnership between the City of Vancouver and the University of British Columbia (UBC) and, in particular, the co-curricular Greenest City Scholars graduate student internship program, which has been developed by the two organizations. Through the program, UBC graduate students work on projects at…

The university volunteer programs in Argentina encourage entrepreneurship culture through the development of innovative socio-environmental projects that promote a joint effort between the different administrations of the State, the universities and regional social organizations. One, called "environment and social inclusion" has been…

In the 2013-14 school year, TASC entered the third year of its national demonstration of ExpandED Schools. Ten elementary and middle schools in New York City, Baltimore and New Orleans continued their partnerships with youth-serving community organizations, such as settlement houses or community development corporations. Together, principals,…

This chapter describes the impact of an alternative spring break program on students at the Savannah College of Art and Design over a set of years as well as its effectiveness as a service-learning tool.

Many Extension programs are turning to the input-output software IMPLAN to demonstrate economic impacts. IMPLAN is a powerful tool that can be used to estimate the total economic activity associated with an industry, event, or policy. One possible application, therefore, is to use program spending data to estimate the economic effects of…