OFRS Faculty Research Awards

Through a combination of narrative and policy analysis, this project seeks to examine the experiences of first-generation college graduates who went on to pursue faculty careers. A central aim of this project is to voice and understand the experiences of “first generation faculty.”

Coming soon!

The Teacher Professional Development (TPD) portal provides a research and training platform for both pre-service teachers enrolled in the College of Education and practicing teachers in the state of Utah. Researchers from the College of Education can utilize the portal to manage and deliver courses and training programs using a broad range of features to support learning, including interactive concept mapping tools, quizzes, voice conferencing, and LTI compliant external resources. In collaboration with graduate students enrolled in the Instructional Design and Educational Technology program, our team examines the effectiveness of SCORM compliant eLearning modules to demonstrate the use of Adobe Creative Cloud apps by mining log-file user interaction data stored in the TPD database.

Reading and understanding text is a fundamental skill for learning and school achievement. Comprehension skills develop long before children can actually read. While listening to stories, young children actively process meanings of words and phrases as well as story characteristics to comprehend text. To study how young children understand stories, this project will examine young children's narration of their understanding of the story, to extract their understanding of story structure and to characterize types of story characteristics that affect children’s early comprehension skills. This project will provide foundational understandings of how text characteristics affect young children’s comprehension and what leads to better comprehension of a narrative text.

This project is a partnership between the Institute for Higher Education Policy and the Credit When It’s Due research team to develop a plan for the long-term sustainability of two associate’s degree reclamation efforts: Credit When It’s Due and Project Win-Win.

Performance-based feedback is an effective method for training and supervising counseling approaches for alcohol-related problems. However, current feedback methods rely on human evaluation of recorded counseling sessions and are not feasible in the real-world due to time and cost. The current study will implement a clinical support software tool that uses speech signal processing and computational models – instead of human judgment – to evaluate motivational interviewing for alcohol and substance use problems.

Dr. Leanne Hawken and Dr. Heidi Mathie Mucha provide coaching and evaluation for the Utah Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (UMTSS) project. The UMTSS project is federally funded by the Office of Special Education Programs and the goal of the project is to help local education agencies scale up implementation of multi-tiered academic and behavior support systems.

The Teacher Professional Development (TPD) portal provides a research and training platform for both pre-service teachers enrolled in the College of Education and practicing teachers in the state of Utah. Researchers from the College of Education can utilize the portal to manage and deliver courses and training programs using a broad range of features to support learning, including interactive concept mapping tools, quizzes, voice conferencing, and LTI compliant external resources. In collaboration with graduate students enrolled in the Instructional Design and Educational Technology program, our team examines the effectiveness of SCORM compliant eLearning modules to demonstrate the use of Adobe Creative Cloud apps by mining log-file user interaction data stored in the TPD database.

The U-TTEC lab of the University of Utah will provide consultative services to support the needs of special/general education teachers and paraprofessionals, their students, and the students’ parents through a telepresence robot problem-solving consultation framework. The U-TTEC Lab will provide weekly support to school staff including meetings, coaching and feedback, staff trainings, student and staff observations, parent training, and other related tasks (developing FBAs and BSPs, attending IEP meetings, etc.).

Westside Pathways Project (WPP) is a college pathways partnership that includes both Adelante, a 12-year college awareness partnership at Jackson elementary, and Mestizo Arts and Activism (MAA), a 10-year youth of color collective that exposes high school students to participatory action research, civic engagement, and college readiness. Dr. Dolores Delgado Bernal is the director of WPP and works directly with Adelante. Dr. Leticia Alvarez is the faculty advisor to MAA and works directly with MAA college and high school students.

Get REAL! provides beginning teachers with classroom-based training using curricula and technology-informed simulations and modules with multimedia explorations for all students in Pre-K-6 classrooms. Get REAL! reflects collaboration across stakeholders, including partnerships between Rose Park Elementary School in the Salt Lake City School District, Elizabeth Academy, and the College of Education. Get REAL! showcases the critical benefits when public-private educators join forces in ways that build upon the strength of each community.

The grant from The Autism Council of Utah will examine the effectiveness of telehealth technologies (i.e., videoconferencing, cloud-based storage, and remote observations) in assessing and treating pediatric feeding problems in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Services will be provided to at least 30 clients and their families for 8-12 weeks. This proposal will enhance the University of Utah’s Neurobehavioral HOME Program Interdisciplinary Feeding Disorders Clinic by providing access to services to individuals with ASD state wide.

• This funding supports the College of Education's mission to educate 21st century, technology-savvy teachers who are well-prepared to engage future generations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
• The Castle Foundation’s generous award allows us to purchase key supplies related to our developing eScience Workspace, where digital tools are used to enhance, extend, and improve work with physical science materials.
• Supplies will include digital microscope adaptors, equipment for the digital capture of observations and physical specimens (e.g., tabletop lighting and magnification lenses for USB cameras), and programming tools that support the development of computational thinking and science engineering in young students.

Relying on longitudinal administrative data on educators in Utah and national survey data from graduates of educational leadership preparation programs, this project will explore the effects of the educational leadership preparation programs in Utah. It aims to provide initial evidence on the association between program attributes and immediate learning outcomes, the career paths of graduates, and their perceptions of leadership practices. The findings will generate important policy recommendations for developing appropriate ways to evaluate leadership preparation programs, measure leadership quality, and effectively prepare and support education leaders.

The U-TTEC Lab, in partnership with Granite School District (GSD), is developing and implementing a district-wide Behavior Support Response Team (BSRT). The primary goal of this partnership is to support the behavioral needs of general education students within the district. The GSD BSRT aims to build capacity within the district to effectively manage behavior problems, while reducing placement and/or program changes for students with problem behavior. Services include the following components: training, coaching, and supervision of graduate students. Doctoral and Master’s level graduate research assistants in Special Education and School Psychology, and faculty within those programs provide these services. Additionally, this project allows graduate students the opportunity to gain school-based experience towards their Board Certification in Behavior Analysis.

The goal of Granite School District (GSD) Behavior Response Support Team is to build capacity within GSD to independently support the needs of GSD students through a Behavior Support Team model. The proposal includes supporting GSD teachers and school staff to develop referral, assessment, intervention and follow-up processes, services, and materials within their schools. U-TTEC graduate students each work twenty hours per week in GSD schools to execute these services.

-- Despite the rapid proliferation of digital reading materials for children, very little evidence exists as to how and when interactive book apps may benefit young readers. -- This study examines the impact of interactive features in picturebooks apps on key reading process and outcomes for students in grades K-2. -- It includes an exploration of children’s usage of interactive features as well as an examination of the relationships between feature use and reading outcomes.

The community-based research project funded by the Miller foundation aims to investigate how to improve print access and reading of low-income young children at a newly developed community library in SLC. By developing library-based workshops, services, and school-based outreach programs, the project is designed to impact low-income neighborhood children by improving reading motivation, reading habits, and literacy skills which will be foundational for later school achievement and well-being.

The University of Utah Leadership Education Program (ULEP) is designed to prepare individuals for faculty positions in higher education who have expertise in effective educational practices for students with severe disabilities. The four-year, competency and field-based Ph.D. program, focuses on developing scholars’ knowledge and skills in inclusive education, curriculum and instruction, peer interventions and supports, transition planning and services, and positive behavioral supports. Additionally, the program promotes the development of the knowledge and skills necessary to conduct rigorous research, design and implement effective teacher preparation programs, and promote the implementation of evidenced-based practices with students with severe disabilities in schools.

The University of Utah Leadership Education Program (ULEP) is designed to prepare individuals for faculty positions in higher education who have expertise in effective educational practices for students with severe disabilities. The four-year, competency and field-based Ph.D. program, focuses on developing scholars’ knowledge and skills in inclusive education, curriculum and instruction, peer interventions and supports, transition planning and services, and positive behavioral supports. Additionally, the program promotes the development of the knowledge and skills necessary to conduct rigorous research, design and implement effective teacher preparation programs, and promote the implementation of evidenced-based practices with students with severe disabilities in schools.

In comparison to White peers in special education, students with emotional and behavioral disabilities (EBD) and students of color are placed at the highest rates—beyond what can be explained by individualized needs—in the most restrictive special education settings, i.e., separate classrooms and separate schools. This qualitative case study will examine the intersections of race and ability for students of color with EBD who are experiencing academic and social-emotional growth in an inclusive, urban elementary school. The purpose of this study is to explore how the school’s leadership, school-wide practices, and classroom instruction support positive academic and social-emotional learning experiences for students of color with EBD. The study will provide a new kind of understanding for scholars and practitioners by sifting through nuances and tensions in the enactment of inclusion practices, school norms, and organizational systems that dismantle, or perhaps reify, inequities for students of color with EBD.

We Are Rose Park is a school-university partnership between Rose Park Elementary School (RPES) and the University of Utah. This multi-phase classroom-based project is designed to foster a culture of inclusion for all RPES stakeholders (e.g., students, teachers, parents), enhance positive student racial and ethnic identity development, and strengthen students' pathway to college. Program evaluation will involve both qualitative and quantitative methods. Funding from the Herbert I. and Elsa B. Michael Foundation will support the integration of technological and multimedia approaches for several classroom and school-wide activities as well as data collection and analysis.

Behavioral problems in the classroom are a prevalent issue that negatively impacts student academic achievement, and contributes to teacher attrition and mental health problems. The time teachers spend retroactively addressing student behavior problems impedes on their ability to provide effective classroom instruction. Although evidence-based classroom behavioral management strategies exist, there is a need for specific training to help teachers competently apply those skills. The implementation of an interactive positive behavior classroom management web-based instructional application will be developed and evaluated with teachers in school across Utah and Nationwide.