Evidence across the learning pipeline — early childhood to workforce transition.
Our education portfolio spans assessment accessibility, online & hybrid learning, curriculum and pedagogy innovation, postsecondary transitions, early childhood learning, and education equity — with federal, foundation, state, and academic partners.
Research at every stage — not just one.
Our education portfolio follows students through five stages of the learning pipeline — each with active research questions and published findings.
Early Childhood
PreK–3 online learning & foundational skill development.
K–12 Assessment
NAEP process data, accessibility features, digital test design.
Online & Hybrid
Differential outcomes, access gaps, pandemic-era learning.
Postsecondary
Course sequences, transition patterns, enrollment outcomes.
Curriculum
Inclusive design, pedagogy innovation, apprenticeship curricula.
A signature finding: what students actually do on a digital math test.
Assessment accessibility is often treated as compliance — does the test document its features? Our NAEP work asks what students actually do with them. Uptake varies sharply across feature, item type, and learner group. Process-data signals predict outcomes that proficiency scores alone obscure.
This is one of six active fronts in our education portfolio — scroll on for the full set, spanning early childhood through postsecondary.
NAEP project page All 6 frontsEducation research fragments across silos — assessment, curriculum, online learning, transitions. But learners don't. They move through every stage, and so does our research.— RISEI education research principle
Where we actually work in education.
Six active lines of research, from early childhood to workforce transition — connected by a common equity lens and data-driven methodology.
Assessment Accessibility & Process Data
Click-stream process data from NAEP digital assessments — analyzing how accessibility features are used by students with disabilities, and how engagement patterns predict outcomes that proficiency scores obscure. IES Innovation Grant; a core contribution to digital-assessment test design.
Is It Live or Is It Internet?
Figlio, Rush & Yin (Journal of Labor Economics, 2013). The first randomized experimental comparison of live vs. internet instruction in higher education. Finds modest evidence that live instruction dominates internet-only, with stronger effects for Hispanic, male, and lower-achieving students — a key caution for universal online substitution.
Curriculum & Pedagogy Innovation
Differentiated design, inclusive curriculum frameworks, and pedagogy innovation for learners often treated as edge cases. Includes accessibility-informed instructional design, apprenticeship curricula deployed through Virginia EPIC and Maine P2P, and AI training curricula for partner agency staff.
Postsecondary Transitions
High-school course-taking patterns, postsecondary enrollment outcomes, and the economic dimensions of education access — including Boston-area work on purchasing power and educational mobility.
Early Childhood
Foundational learning in preK–3: online early-learning program evaluation, universal design in early assessment, and access to high-quality early education. An emerging front connected to our broader K–16 pipeline.
Education Equity & Access
The equity lens running across all five other fronts. Geographic access gaps, purchasing-power dimensions, digital divides, and differential outcomes for students with disabilities — oriented toward the actionable inflection points.
NAEP Process Data & Accessibility.
An IES Innovation Grant investigating how accessibility features in NAEP digital math assessments are actually used by students with disabilities — and what the findings imply for next-generation test design.
Open project page →Education intersects workforce
Our apprenticeship curriculum work lives at the intersection of education and workforce research — developed with state agencies through Virginia EPIC and Maine P2P.
Virginia EPIC → | Maine P2P →Published from this research area.
Peer-reviewed articles, policy briefs, and reports from across the six education fronts.
Scoping an education or assessment grant?
RISEI Lab serves as named evaluator on education grants across assessment accessibility, online and hybrid learning, curriculum innovation, postsecondary transitions, early childhood, and education equity. Whether you need methodology, implementation support, or knowledge translation — bring us in at the proposal stage.
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