# Presentation: 047916

## IES Grant Writing Workshop 

- Institute of Education Sciences
- U.S. Department of Education

- Getting Started
- Identify Appropriate Research Program
- Which Goal is Right for You?
- Preparing the Proposal
- Preparing the Project Narrative
- Reviewers’ Perspectives

- Submitting a Proposal
- What Happens Next?
- Final Reminders

## Getting Started

## Getting Started

- Request for Applications
- Application Package

## Finding Requests for Applications

- FY 2009 Requests for Applications are available on:
- _[http://ies.ed.gov/funding](http://ies.ed.gov/funding)_
- Sign up for the IES Newsflash:
- 			_[http://ies.ed.gov/newsflash/](http://ies.ed.gov/newsflash/)_

## http://ies.ed.gov 

## Research & Research Training Grant Programs

- Education and Special Education Research Grant Programs
- Predoctoral and Postdoctoral Research Training Grant Programs
- National Research and Development Centers
- Statistical and Research Methodology in Education
- Evaluation of State and Local Education Programs and Polices

## Finding Application Packages

- FY 2009 Application Packages will be available on _[www.grants.gov](http://www.grants.gov/)__._
- Check Requests for Applications for when Application Packages and Application Instructions will become available.

## Determine Whether You are Eligible to Apply

- Applicants that have the ability and capacity to conduct scientifically valid research
- Include, but are not limited to, non-profit and for-profit organizations, and public and private agencies and institutions, such as colleges and universities

## Identify Appropriate Research Program

## Identify Appropriate Research Program

- Read the Request for Applications
- Check the announced topics
- Look at the abstracts of projects funded under a research topic

## Education Research Grant Program (84.305A)Special Education Research Grant Program (84.324A)

## NCER Standing Research Programs

- Reading and Writing
- Mathematics and Science Education
- Cognition and Student Learning
- Social and Behavioral Context for Academic Learning
- Teacher Quality
- Education Leadership
- Education Policy, Finance, and Systems

## NCER Standing Research Programs

- Early Childhood Programs and Policies
- Middle and High School Reform
- Interventions for Struggling Adolescent and Adult Readers and Writers
- Postsecondary Education
- Education Technology

## NCSER Standing Research Programs

- Early Intervention and Early Childhood Special Education
- Reading, Writing, and Language Development
- Mathematics and Science Education
- Social and Behavioral Outcomes to Support Learning
- Transition Outcomes for Special Education Secondary Students

## NCSER Standing Research Programs

- Cognition and Student Learning in Special Education
- Teacher Quality
- Related Services
- Systemic Interventions and Policies for Special Education
- Autism Spectrum Disorders

## Which Goal is Right for You?

## Which Goal is Right for You?

- Identify/explore programs, practices, or malleable factors associated with better student outcomes
- Develop new education interventions
- Evaluate the efficacy of interventions
- Evaluate the impact of interventions implemented at scale
- Develop and/or validate measurement tools

##    Identification Goal

- Identify/explore education programs, practices, and malleable factors that are associated with better student learning and achievement outcomes
- Secondary analyses of longitudinal datasets
- Conduct small descriptive studies
- Meta-analyses

## Identification Goal

- $100,000 to $350,000 per year total cost (direct + indirect)
- 2 to 4 years

## Development Goal

- Develop new interventions (e.g., instructional practices, curricula, teacher professional development)
- Demonstrate the feasibility of the intervention for implementation in an authentic education delivery setting
- Collect pilot data on promise of intervention to achieve intended outcomes

## Development Goal

- $150,000 to $500,000 per year (total cost = direct + indirect)
- 1 to 3 years

## Efficacy and Replication Goal

- Test efficacy of fully developed interventions
- Efficacy = the degree to which an intervention has a net positive impact on the outcomes of interest relative to the program/practice to which it is being compared

## Efficacy and Replication Goal

- $250,000 to $750,000 per year (total cost)
- Up to 4 years

## Scale-up Evaluation Goal

- Test the impact of interventions implemented at scale
- As implemented by practitioners (i.e., not by researchers)
- Studies using randomized assignment to treatment and comparison conditions are strongly preferred

## Scale-up Evaluation Goal

- $500,000 to $1,200,000 per year (total cost)
- Up to 5 years

## Measurement Goal

- Develop and test assessments or other measurement tools
- $150,000 to $400,000 per year (total cost = direct + indirect)
- Up to 4 years

## Which Goal is Right for You?

- Read the Request for Applications
- Start to think about which goal is appropriate for the question(s) you want to answer

## What if My Program is “Between” Goals?

- PICK ONE!
- Read the Request for Applications
- Don’t just go for the largest amount of money.
- Break the project down into smaller pieces.
- Aim for a well-crafted project that will deliver what it promises....

## Personnel Considerations

- Think about the type of expertise that is needed to carry-out the project

## Build a Good Team

## Who Should Be on Your Team?

- Consider Goal
- Consider training and experience
- Commit sufficient time to competently implement the proposed research
- What if you are a relatively junior researcher or do not have a track record with large projects and grants?

## Young Investigators

- Challenge – convince reviewers that you (and your team) have the skills and experience to implement well what you have proposed
- Develop a team
- Demonstrate productivity

## Next Steps

- Read the Request for Applications closely one more time and confirm that your idea fits the requirements for a specific topic (e.g., Read/Write) and goal.
- Then, contact the appropriate program officer and discuss your project with him or her.

## Recap

- Select RFA
- Select topic within RFA
- Select goal within topic
- Begin to identify Key Personnel
- Contact NCER or NCSER program officer(s)

## Preparing the Proposal

- (Complete all components)

## Preparing the Proposal

- SF 424 (Cover Sheet)
- R&R Total Federal and Non-Federal Budget form
- Project Summary/Abstract
- Contents of the Application

## Preparing the Proposal:Contents of Application

- Project Narrative
- Bibliography and References Cited
- Biographical Sketches of Key Project Personnel
- Narrative Budget Justification
- Subaward Budgets

## Preparing the Proposal: Contents of Application

- Appendix A (letters of agreement; tables; figures)
- Appendix B (curriculum materials)
- Additional forms for applicants selected for funding

## Preparing the Proposal: Creating a Budget

- Personnel
- Fringe Benefits
- Travel
- Equipment

- Supplies
- Contractual
- Other
- Indirect Costs

## Preparing the Project Narrative

## Project Narrative

- Significance
- Research Plan
- Personnel
- Resources

## Significance

- Read the RFA
- Information required to address significance of project depends on the Research Goal

## Research Plan

- Read the RFA
- Information required of the research plan depends on the Research Goal

**Designing Projects Under Each Goal:**
**Research Plan**

## Designing Identification/Exploration Projects

- Secondary Data
- Choose a pre-existing dataset (local, district, state, national).
- Explain characteristics of dataset well.
- Provide sufficient detail as to the statistical and analytic plans you will use to draw conclusions.
- You may propose to collect additional data.

## Designing Identification/Exploration Projects

- Primary Data
- Clearly describe the sample
- Explain the measures and how the data are coded in sufficient detail so that the relation between measures and hypotheses are clear
- Provide detailed statistical and analytic plans.

## Designing Identification Projects

- Meta-analysis
- Clearly describe:
- Criteria for including studies and rationale
- Search procedures
- Coding scheme and procedures for extracting data
- Procedures for ensuring reliability of coding
- Demonstrate sufficient numbers of studies are available
- Provide detailed statistical and analytic plans including defining effect size statistics

## Designing Development Projects

## FY 2009 IES Development Project

- Fully developed intervention
- Pilot data on the feasibility of implementing the intervention in schools
- Pilot data on the promise of the intervention for generating desired outcomes

## Why Develop This Intervention?

- Context for the proposed intervention
- Describe attributes of existing practice
- Specify shortcomings of existing practice
- Clarify the problem

## Why Develop This Intervention?

- Describe the proposed intervention
- What are the components or features of intervention?
- Who will implement or use it?
- How will it be used?
- Practical importance of the proposed intervention

## Why Develop This Intervention?

- Theory of change
- What is the causal chain of events that leads from the implementation of the intervention to the desired outcome?
- Rationale for theory of change
- Theoretical and empirical justification
- How does the proposed intervention address the shortcomings of current practice?

## Development (Research) Plan

- What will be developed
- How it will be developed
- How will the intervention (components) be tested to see if it operates as intended

## Operating as Intended

- Define “operating as intended”
- Criteria to determine if intervention operates as intended
- Correspondence with theory of change

## Operating as Intended

- What data will be collected to determine how the intervention is operating?
- Often involves collection of process data (e.g., observation of teacher implementing a lesson)
- Feedback from users
- Specify how data will be coded (i.e., what are you looking for?)

## Operating as Intended

- Define “operating as intended”
- What data will be collected to determine how the intervention is operating?
- How will the data be used to revise the intervention, if needed?

## Iterations????

- Number of iterations depends on the complexity of the intervention and its implementation

## Feasibility of Intervention

- Demonstrate that intervention can be implemented with fidelity
- In settings that represent the type of settings for which the intervention is intended
- By users who are like those for whom the product is intended

## Promise of the Intervention

- Does performance on outcome measures progress in the appropriate direction?
- Is implementation of intervention associated with changes in activities and behaviors that are consistent with the theory of change?

## Designing Efficacy and Replication Projects

- Goal is to determine whether or not fully-developed interventions – programs, practices, policies – are effective
- Under specified conditions (e.g., urban schools with high teacher turnover rate)
- With specific types of students (e.g., students with reading disabilities ).

## Designing Efficacy and Replication Projects

- Describe what the components of the intervention are.
- Describe how the intervention differs from what is typically offered in education settings.
- Define your sample well.

## Designing Efficacy and Replication Projects

- Prefer use of random assignment.
- Decide level of randomization (student, teacher, school).
- Ensure that level of randomization matches level of analysis.

## Designing Efficacy and Replication Projects

- Use power analysis to determine number of students, teachers, schools needed to draw conclusions about impact.
- Include standardized measures of student achievement.
- Attend to fidelity of implementation.

## Designing Scale-up Evaluations

- Does this intervention produce a net positive increase in student learning and achievement relative to the variety of products or practices that are currently available and utilized by schools?

## Designing Scale-up Evaluations

- All of the methodological requirements for Efficacy and Replication projects
- Implementation occurs at scale and under typical conditions

## Designing Scale-up Evaluations

- Choosing Outcome Measures
- Do they map well onto your theoretical questions?
- Are you using standardized achievement tests?
- Have you included proximal measures?
- Who will administer them?
- Did you budget to buy them?

## Designing Measurement Projects

- Provide strong theoretical rationale for development of new measurement tool.
- Justify the need for this new tool.
- Detail the proposed procedures for developing the assessment instrument.
- Describe the research plans for determining the validity and reliability of the instrument.

## Designing Measurement Projects

- Describe the characteristics and size of samples to be used in each study.
- Explain procedures for collecting data.
- Describe additional measures to be used to determine validity of new tool.
- Describe data analytic strategies.

## Personnel and Resources

- Read the RFA
- Don’t forget to address these two sections within the project narrative
- Use biographical sketches (CVs) to further document expertise and productivity
- In Appendix A document access to schools or datasets needed to conduct research project

## Build Relationships with Schools

## Include Letters of Agreement

- Are expected for most competitions
- Reviewers look for them and read them carefully
- Should include detailed information that demonstrates that your partners understand what participation will entail
- From whom should you get letters?
- Teachers, Principals, District?

## Formatting Requirements

- Abstract is 1 page single-spaced.
- Research narrative is no longer than 25 pages single-spaced.
- Bibliography has no page limit.
- Each biographical sketch is limited to 4 pages.
- Budget justification has no page limit.
- Appendix A can be no longer than 15 pages.
- Appendix B can be no longer than 10 pages.

## Additional Reminders

- Pay attention to what can and cannot be included in the Appendices
- Have a colleague who isn’t involved in the project read a draft

## Reviewers’ Perspectives

- Write clearly and concisely
- Address the points described in RFA
- Organize information in logical sequence
- Label sections and number pages
- Make it easy for reviewers to find and understand the information

## Submitting a Proposal

- All proposals must be submitted electronically to:
- _[http://www.grants.gov](http://www.grants.gov/)_
- By the date and time listed on the Request for Applications

## Final Proposal Submission

- On-line forms are complete
- PDFs of proposal contents have been uploaded
- Authorized representative has completed the final step of the electronic process.
- You have received an email acknowledging receipt of your application.

## What Happens Next?

## Peer Review

- Proposal is reviewed for compliance.
- Compliant proposals are assigned to a review panel.
- Two or three panel members conduct primary review of each application.
- At panel meeting, the most competitive applications are reviewed by full panel.

## Notification

- All applicants will receive email notification of the status of their application.
- All applicants receive copies of reviewer comments.
- If you are not granted an award the first time, plan on resubmitting, and talk to your program officer.

## Final Reminders

## Don’t Forget...

- Start early
- Read the Request for Applications
- Talk with the program officer
- Start the online submission process early

## ies.ed.gov