Data Management for Education Research (Fall 2025)
This course equips students with essential skills in data management and analysis. It is intended for those with little or no prior experience in Stata programming. Through a hands-on, data-focused approach, students will practice foundational techniques in cleaning and transforming datasets, maintaining clear documentation for reproducibility, and using statistical tools and visualizations to examine education-related questions.
Introduction to Research (Summer 2024)
Designed to introduce students to social science research methods, including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method approaches to education inquiry. Students develop skills in conducting literature searches, reading empirical research studies, and applying these methods. Students leave the course better able to critically examine research presented in the mass media, critically engage with research in the workplace, and participate in research-based efforts to improve education.
Statistics Workshop (Summer 2024)
This three-day workshop provides incoming Boston University Wheelock graduate students an overview of foundational statistical knowledge and skills to prepare them for the statistics course sequence they will take as part of their program of study.
Disability, Education, and Public Policy (Spring 2024)
In this course, students examine how disabilities impact students, their families, and their educational/community participation. They critically analyze the historical treatment of individuals with disabilities, engage in discussions surrounding contemporary ethical dilemmas, familiarize themselves with relevant federal legislation, and develop a foundational understanding of inclusive educational methodologies and practices.
Quantitative Research Methods (Fall 2026)
This graduate-level course introduces foundational statistical approaches for educational research, including descriptive and inferential procedures such as t-tests, ANOVA, correlation, regression, multiple comparisons, and chi-square analyses. Students explore the assumptions underlying these techniques, the implications of violations, and approaches for addressing them, with particular emphasis on interpretation. The semester culminates in a research project involving problem identification, data collection, statistical examination, and presentation of findings.
Causal Design in Education Research (Spring 2025, Spring 2023)
This course introduces students to research designs commonly used in education research that plausibly allow for causal claims. Topics include randomized field trials, regression discontinuity, differences-in- differences, and instrumental variables.
Introduction to Research (Summer 2022, Fall 2021)
Designed to introduce students to social science research methods, including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method approaches to education inquiry. Students develop skills in conducting literature searches, reading empirical research studies, and applying these methods. Students leave the course better able to critically examine research presented in the mass media, critically engage with research in the workplace, and participate in research-based efforts to improve education.
Economics of Growth and Development (Spring 2021)
This course introduces key concepts in modern macroeconomics and international economics. It trains students to interpret macroeconomic statistics and to understand how fiscal, monetary, trade, and exchange rate policies affect the economy. The objective is to make you an informed consumer of economic news and economic analysis. This class requires no prior exposure to economics.
Introduction to Public Policy (Fall 2021)
This course provides theoretical and practical components for understanding the policy-making process. It explores factors determining the nature of public issues, the influence of actors on government agendas, the process of seeking solutions, reaching policy decisions, and the key features of policy implementation and evaluation. By critically examining the policy cycle, the course identifies and analyzes the influence of bureaucratic structures, political parties, interest groups, media, government institutions (presidents and legislatures), and ideas.