Quantitative Methods in Education and Statistics: Overview
Not surprisingly, educational researchers with strong backgrounds in statistics are in enormous demand, particularly in schools and colleges of education, but also in high-level research organizations such as the Educational Testing Service, the Rand Corporation, the National Opinion Research Center, as well as government agencies including, for example, State Departments of Education. Currently, US universities are not keeping pace with this demand. Moreover, rapid advances in statistical methodology across many disciplines render ineffective the standard programs that universities have used to train educational statisticians. The University of Michigan creates an ideal environment in which to respond to this challenge.
The inter-disciplinary culture of the University of Michigan, which has generated strong connections between statisticians and quantitative social scientists in economics, education, psychology, sociology creates an ideal environment in which to create an entirely new model for the training of educational statisticians. Much more important, the program promises to expose Ph D students to the best current thinking in applied statistics across a range of departments while also enabling students in statistics to engage their technical interests in fascinating and challenging applied problems and methods that arise in education. The students will find great opportunities to work on high-quality research projects occurring within the School of Education, which is conducting a number of well-funded large-scale evaluations of educational interventions as well as secondary analyses of survey data.
The basic ingredients of the program as follows:
- Participating students are required develop an area of substantive interest in education (e.g., early childhood education, educational technology, literacy education, mathematics education). They must develop a knowledge of research literatures in their chosen field with an emphasis on uncovering the key methodological challenges that face researchers in that field.
- These students will also gain a strong grasp in the mathematical foundations of applied statistics, including probability, statistical inference, linear models, multivariate statistics; as well as applications to assessment, program evaluation, and survey research in education.
- Students receiving this degree must meet the PhD program requirements of the Department of Educational Studies as well as those of the Masters Degree in Statistics.
Participating students will be encouraged to draw on multi-disciplinary courses, colloquia, and seminars available at the University through the Survey Methodology Program, the Quantitative Methodology Program, and the Social Statistics and Methodology Program, and other programs. A doctoral guidance committee formed in accord with the policies of the Department of Educational Studies but including at least one member of the Department of Statistics will provide information and advice to guide students in selecting among the vast resources of the university to advance student knowledge and research interests.
