Special Education Research Grants
Solicitation Title: Special Education Research Grants
Funding Amount: Up to $3,300,000; see Other Information
Sponsor Deadline: Thursday, August 29, 2019
Solicitation Link: https://ies.ed.gov/funding/pdf/2020_84324A.pdf
Solicitation Number: 84.324A
Overview
<div> <div>In this Request for Applications (RFA), IES invites applications for research projects that will contribute to its Special Education Research Grants program (CFDA 84.324A). NCSER’s goal is to identify what works for whom, in what context, and why in order to provide reliable information about how to improve education outcomes for children and youth with disabilities. The research supported under the Special Education Research Grants program should not only yield information about the practical benefits and the effects of specific interventions on developmental, education, and transition outcomes for children and youth with disabilities, but also contribute to scientific knowledge and theory of teaching, learning, and organizing education systems.</div> <div> <ul> <li>All research supported under the Special Education Research Grants program must focus on children and/or youth with or at risk for disabilities.</li> <li>All research supported under the Special Education Research Grants program must (1) focus on children and youth in the age/grade levels described below and (2) measure education outcomes of those learners.</li> <li>Proposed research must be relevant to education in the United States and must address factors under the control of U.S. education systems. </li> </ul> </div> <div><em><strong>Topics</strong></em></div> <div>NCSER’s 11 standing research topics include: </div> <ol> <li>Autism Spectrum Disorders</li> <li>Cognition and Student Learning in Special Education</li> <li>Early Intervention and Early Learning in Special Education</li> <li>Families of Children with Disabilities </li> <li>Professional Development for Educators and School-Based Service Providers</li> <li>Reading, Writing, and Language Development</li> <li>Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education</li> <li>Social and Behavioral Outcomes to Support Learning </li> <li>Special Education Policy, Finance, and Systems</li> <li>Technology for Special Education</li> <li>Transition Outcomes for Secondary Students with Disabilities</li> </ol> <div><span>For FY 2020, NCSER includes </span><strong>special research topics</strong><span> to provide additional encouragement for research in under-studied areas that appear promising for improving outcomes for children and youth with disabilities, and that are of interest to policymakers and practitioners. These special research topics are offered on a limited-time basis to bring attention to them while also allowing them to be reintegrated in later years into one or more of the standing topics as appropriate. NCSER’s three special research topics include: </span></div> <ol> <li>Special Topic: Career and Technical Education for Students with Disabilities </li> <li>Special Topic: English Learners with Disabilities</li> <li>Special Topic: Systems-Involved Students with Disabilities</li> </ol> <div><em><strong>Project types</strong></em></div> </div> <ol> <li><strong>Exploration</strong>: Exploration supports projects that identify relationships between individual-, educator-, school-, and policy-level characteristics and education outcomes, and factors outside of education settings that may influence or guide those relationships. Findings from Exploration projects point out potentially fruitful areas for further attention from researchers, policymakers, and practitioners rather than providing strong evidence for adopting specific interventions or assessment tools</li> <li><strong>Development and Innovation</strong>: Development and Innovation supports the development and pilot testing of new or modified education interventions that are intended to produce beneficial impacts on learner outcomes. A Development and Innovation project will result in a fully developed intervention, evidence of the intervention’s theory of change, and data that speak to the intervention’s feasibility, fidelity of implementation, costs, and promise for improving learner outcomes.</li> <li><strong>Initial Efficacy and Follow-Up</strong>: Initial Efficacy and Follow-Up supports initial efficacy studies of education interventions using designs that meet the IES What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) design standards 5 and longer term follow-up studies of rigorously evaluated interventions. Initial Efficacy projects test interventions that have not been rigorously evaluated previously to examine the intervention’s beneficial impact on education outcomes in comparison to an alternative practice, program, or policy. Follow-Up projects test the longer term impact of an intervention that has been shown to have beneficial impacts on education outcomes in a previous or ongoing evaluation study. Initial Efficacy and Follow-Up projects should provide practical information about the benefits and costs of specific interventions to inform the intervention’s theory of change, its implementation, its usefulness for education personnel, and future research.</li> <li><strong>Measurement</strong>: Measurement supports the development and validation of new assessments or refinement and validation of existing assessments, for specific purposes, contexts, and populations. A Measurement project will result in a valid assessment that can be used by education personnel or researchers to measure learner outcomes for specific populations and contexts. Measurement projects can also address purposes such as measuring educator knowledge, skills, and abilities; guiding instruction; improving educator practice; evaluating educator job performance; or assessing the effectiveness of schools or school systems.</li> </ol>
Solicitation Limitations: <p>You may submit applications to more than one of the FY 2020 IES grant programs and to multiple topics within the Education Research Grants program. In addition, within a particular grant program or topic, you may submit multiple applications.</p> <p><em><strong>Resubmissions</strong></em><br>If you intend to revise and resubmit an application that was submitted to a previous IES competition but that was not funded, you must indicate on the SF 424 Application for Federal Assistance Form in the application package (see IES Application Submission Guide) that the FY 2020 application is a resubmission (Item 8) and include the application number of the previous application (an 11-character alphanumeric identifier beginning “R305” or “R324” entered in Item 4a). Prior reviews will be sent to this year’s reviewers along with the resubmitted application. You must describe your response to the prior reviews using Appendix B: Response to Reviewers. Revised and resubmitted applications will be reviewed according to this FY 2020 Request for Applications. If you submitted a somewhat similar application in the past and did not receive an award but are submitting the current application as a new application, you should indicate on the application form (Item 8) that your FY 2020 application is a new application. In Appendix B, you should provide a rationale explaining why your FY 2020 application should be considered a new application rather than a revision. If you do not provide such an explanation, then IES may send the reviews of the prior unfunded application to this year’s reviewers along with the current application.</p> Other Information:<div><em><strong>Funding Amounts</strong></em></div> <div style="padding-left:30px">Exploration, Secondary Data Analysis only: $600,000, 2 years<br>Exploration, Primary Data Collection and Analysis: $1,400,000, 4 years<br>Development and Innovation: $1,400,000, 4 years<br>Initial Efficacy and Follow-Up, Initial Efficacy, Primary Data Collection - $3,300,000, 5 years<br>Initial Efficacy and Follow-Up, Initial Efficacy, Secondary Data Analysis - $700,000, 3 years<br>Initial Efficacy and Follow-Up, Follow-Up: $1,100,000, 3 years<br>Measurement: $1,400,000, 4 years</div> <div style="padding-left:30px"></div> <div>IES requires the measurement of additional education outcomes under two topics: Career and Technical Education and Social and Behavioral Context for Academic Learning. Optional LOI is due 7/11/2019. The LOI is non-binding and optional but strongly recommended. If you submit an LOI, a Program Officer will contact you regarding your proposed research.</div>Last Updated:
RODA ID: 633