Research 2 doctoral candidates receive Prevention Research Center anti-racism research grants Two doctoral candidates in the College of Education are among those awarded funding by the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center (PRC) for research projects focusing on reducing racism or promoting antiracist practices and culture. Andrea Layton, doctoral candidate in the Educational Leadership Program, is doing research on “The Link Between Institutional Racism, Mental Health and Academic Efficacy.” She will conduct an online survey of Black Penn State undergraduates between the ages of 18-25 who have received mental health services while attending Penn State. Based upon her findings, she will propose ways to create a student-centered environment based upon the survey respondents’ descriptions of their college experiences. Her faculty adviser is Deborah Schussler, associate professor of education. Sarah Zipf, doctoral candidate in higher education, is doing research on “Experiences of Racialization in Online Undergraduate Education.” She is studying color-evasiveness in online education, in hopes of informing policies and practices that will reduce racism experienced by online students. She is surveying online students in one college at Penn State about their perceptions of race and of the online classroom climate. She also will analyze written communications such as syllabi and websites that students may encounter. Her faculty adviser is Alicia Dowd, professor of education and director and senior scientist for the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Penn State. The grant recipients will share the outcomes of their research projects at public seminars hosted by the PRC. Registration for email notification of upcoming PRC seminars is available by sending an email to prevention@psu.edu. Read more here.
Researchers study trends in Pennsylvania school reopening plans The COVID-19 pandemic has presented numerous challenges to school districts across the nation as they have debated options for educating students safely. According to researchers in Penn State’s College of Education, the decision by Pennsylvania school districts to reopen schools in-person, remotely or through a hybrid system is closely tied to the racial demographics of the region, and they recommend a series of steps to support equitable responses to the COVID-19 pandemic by school districts. 16
Penn State Education
“Our hope is to try to help school district leaders in Pennsylvania understand the different ways people are responding (to the pandemic),” said Erica Frankenberg, professor of education (educational leadership) in the Department of Education Policy Studies. “Hopefully, this sharing of knowledge will help inform the work they do.” Frankenberg, co-founder and director of the Center for Education and Civil Rights, conducted the study with Katharine Dulaney, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Education Policy Studies. They shared key findings and policy recommendations in a research brief, “Inequity in Pennsylvania School District Reopening Decisions: How Districts’ Mode of Delivery Varies by Region and Student/Community.” Read more here.
Intervention improves sense of belonging for minoritized students Broad-access institutions — colleges and universities that are relatively affordable and less selective than elite institutions — open doors for many students from disadvantaged social backgrounds who might not otherwise pursue higher education. Yet these institutions struggle with persistence and graduation rates among this population. Maithreyi Gopalan, assistant professor of education in the Department of Education Policy Studies, is part of a research team that is seeking to help firstgeneration and racial-ethnic minoritized college students succeed by enhancing their sense of belonging through a social-psychological intervention. “While this study was a field experiment that enables us to make causal inferences, my earlier work using descriptive research on larger, nationally representative datasets also lends support for the main hypothesis: that a strong sense of social belonging might be a protective factor that enables students to persist and thrive in college,” said Gopalan. Gopalan’s research team, led by Mary Murphy, the Herman B Wells Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University, recently published a paper, “A customized belonging intervention improves retention of socially disadvantaged students at a broadaccess university” in Science Advances. Read more here.
New $4.6 million research award to make sure that every voice is heard A new, five-year, $4.6 million award from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research will fund research, technology development, training and dissemination to assist people who cannot communicate through speech or writing.
