In recognition of her research work at Northwestern, Vivian Wong, a doctoral student in the Human Development and Social Policy program, was named the Institute of Education Sciences 2010 Outstanding Predoctoral Fellow. The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is the arm of the U.S. Department of Education that is dedicated to fostering rigorous education research.
"Vivian has distinguished herself as a leading methodologist, particularly in quasi-experimental designs, and is already a sought-after methodologist who is asked to participate in major evaluations of education policies," stated IES director John Easton as he presented Wong with the award at the IES annual conference on June 28.
Wong is a fellow in Northwestern University's Multidisciplinary Program in Education Sciences, one of the 18 interdisciplinary predoctoral research training programs that IES supports. To date, 350 fellows have been involved nationally since the IES program began in 2004. As part of a rigorous selection process, each predoctoral program nominates one fellow for the IES Outstanding Predoctoral Fellowship each year.
In his congratulatory speech, Easton cited this comment from her adviser and frequent collaborator professor Thomas Cook, who recommended her for the fellowship: "There can be few faculty members, let alone graduate students, who have Vivian's flexibility of mind, command of technical detail, nose for what will work, and relish at discovering new problems through enthusiastically standing knee deep in the muddy of real-world research experience."
Wong is training to be a research methodologist in the field of education. Her research interests include examination of recent shifts in methodology choice in education, empirical tests of quasi-experimental designs and issues in implementation and analysis of regression-discontinuity (RD) studies.
As a graduate student, Wong has coauthored eight papers, reports and book chapters and given numerous presentations. "Her focus on methods for improving the design, implementation and analysis of RD designs promises big things for her moving forward," Easton commented.
One of the significant research projects Wong completed is an evaluation of five state pre-kindergarten programs. At a policy briefing in 2007 in Washington, D.C., Vivian presented the findings of her study with Cook. They found that state pre-kindergarten programs for Michigan, New Jersey, West Virginia, Oklahoma and South Carolina had positive effects in three areas of cognitive development.
Wong's dissertation examines methods for improving the design, implementation and analysis of the regression discontinuity (RD) research design. In this type of research design, units are assigned to treatment conditions solely on the basis of a cutoff score on a single continuous assignment variable. Units that score on one side of the cutoff are assigned to the treatment while units that score on the other side are assigned to the comparison. Treatment effects are estimated by measuring the displacement of the regression line at the cutoff point. "Recent applications of RD evaluation studies in education have sparked methodological interests in the quasi-experimental design," says Wong.
Photo caption:
John Easton, director of the Institute of Education Sciences, presented Vivian Wong with the award for 2010 Outstanding IES Predoctoral Fellow.