Timeline

Presentation Formats

Symposia
Symposia provide the opportunity for investigators whose work focuses on a similar topic to present their findings in a single session. Each symposium proposal must include a justification for bringing together, in one session, the work of a group of investigators. This justification should describe both the contribution of individual papers and demonstrate connections between the body of research. A symposium proposal will include abstracts for each of the individual papers (three to four in number) in the proposal. Symposia chairs will be responsible for overall logistics and provide a general introduction for the session. A symposium proposal should also identify an independent discussant. This individual will offer general commentary on individual papers and explore how together they advance our knowledge of causal relations important for educational effectiveness. Each symposium will be two hours in length.

Individual Papers
Individual papers with a similar focus will be assembled into a single session by the program committee. A session chair will be responsible for introducing the session, keeping track of time, and initiating the discussion after the final paper presentation. The length of the entire session will vary (ninety minutes to two hours), depending on the number of individual papers (three to four).

Posters
The conference will utilize a virtual poster format. Electronic files containing the poster must be submitted to SREE by February 1st, 2011. For a three week period before the conference, the files will be available on the SREE website for online review and two-way commentary between presenters and readers. During the conference, there will be a time period allocated for on-site in-person exchange between presenters and conference participants.

From a substantive perspective, symposia, papers, and posters submitted for presentation should identify pressing problems in education and connect research findings to educational decisions. The interventions described may have been designed for different populations, within or across different developmental periods, or implemented at varying levels of scale.

From a methodological perspective, research will employ designs and analyses that provide support for the type of causal inference upon which educational decisions may be credibly based. Such designs and analyses may, for example, include randomized field trials, quasi-experimental designs, regression discontinuity designs, and propensity score matching.

Submission Procedures: Extended Structured Abstracts

All individual papers and posters should be submitted in the form of extended structured abstracts, with a limit (excluding references, tables, and figures) of four pages (single spaced, 12 point font). Papers which comprise part of a symposium proposal will utilize the same extended structured abstract format, but should be submitted as one complete document, including the symposium justification.

Drawing on the recommendations offered by Mosteller, Nave & Miech for structured abstracts, proposals should be organized according to the following headings:

• Background / Context: Description of prior research and its intellectual context.
• Purpose / Objective / Research Question / Focus of Study: Description of the focus of the research.
• Setting: Description of the research location.
• Population / Participants / Subjects: Description of the participants in the study: who, how many, key features or characteristics.
• Intervention / Program / Practice: Description of the intervention, program or practice, including details of administration and duration.
• Research Design: Description of research design (e.g., qualitative case study, quasi-experimental design, secondary analysis, analytic essay, randomized field trial).
• Data Collection and Analysis: Description of the methods for collecting and analyzing data.
• Findings / Results: Description of the main findings with specific details.
• Conclusions: Description of conclusions, recommendations, and limitations based on findings.

Symposia, papers, and posters submitted to the research methodology section should follow the structured abstract categories but adapt as necessary in those instances where empirical studies were not used to illustrate the methodological practices under consideration.

For the Research Methods section, proposals should (a) be relevant to problems of drawing causal inferences in education, (b) be placed in a historical context with attention paid to citing prior methodological research, and (c) provide detailed information regarding real data designs, simulation designs, and/or mathematical derivations that support causal inference

Reference: Mosteller, F., Nave, B., and Miech, E. (2004). Why we need a structured abstract in education research. Educational Researcher., X, 29-34

Review Criteria

Investigators should demonstrate how various forms of bias that weaken causal inference have been addressed. In those cases where a clear counterfactual condition has not been included as a feature of the research design, investigators should demonstrate how the various forms of bias have been handled. Consistent with the mission of SREE, papers that make use of true experimental designs or well designed quasi-experimental designs will be preferred over those designs that employ statistical adjustments as proxies for designs that control for bias.

Pragmatic Criteria
To what extent does the study identify a problem that has important implications for educational effectiveness? To what extent might the study inform critical decisions that need to be made about curriculum, teaching, school organization or education policy?
For methodological studies-are the methods or extensions of methods likely to improve research on educational effectiveness?

Methodological Criteria
To what extent has the study employed elements of research design that attempt to eliminate potential sources of bias that may interfere with valid cause-and-effect conclusions? Does the study include valid and reliable measures of key variables and outcomes? Is the study’s sample adequately representative of the population of interest?
For methodological studies-does the study provide evidence of the utility and adequacy of the proposed methods?

Theoretical Criterion
To what extent does the study, and the explanatory models it offers, improve our ability to identify cause and effect relations that are important for educational effectiveness?

Thematic Coherence
To what extent does the study align with the theme of the conference?