Brooks Bowden, Assistant Professor of Methods and Policy, Department of Educational Leadership, Policy and Human Development, at North Carolina State University will give the next “Policy Goes to School” lecture titled, “Simplifying Cost Research Design for Educational Field Trials.” The free lecture will take place on Monday, June 5 from 2-3 pm in 1213 Education Building, and is open to the public.
The “Policy Goes to School” Lecture Series 2016-2017 explores the theme “Addressing Under-Researched Areas of Education Policy.” Bowden’s lecture will discuss the how to simplify cost analysis research in field trials pertaining to education research. Many federal sources for education research funding require the inclusion of an assessment of the costs to achieve impacts. This paper addresses this new demand by providing guidance on how to design a cost study and examples of how data collection can be integrated into field trials. There are two major challenges facing researchers in this effort: 1) costs have not historically been included in evaluation, 2) the federal funding for research is not expanding.
Bowden’s research focuses on analyzing the costs of new policies in order to better understand the feasibility of their implementation in the context of resources available in certain educational settings. This research is valuable to schools considering implementing or re-instating certain programs by providing transparent analysis of costs. Bowden is passionate about her research as a way to shape policy that can eventually help close the achievement gap.