Projects

Project Overview

The Regional Educational Laboratory–Appalachia (REL-Appalachia) seeks to identify and meet the educational research needs of state and local education agencies, school districts, and schools in the Appalachian region (Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee). Part of a network of 10 such labs across the country, REL-Appalachia is designed to conduct and disseminate research that will support continuous improvement in student outcomes, help close achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students, and achieve other key goals of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Emphasis is on long-term, rigorous evaluations of public education programs and short-term research projects investigating and analyzing education policies and practices. Insight developed a multitiered approach to evaluating the dissemination efforts of the REL–Appalachia to help assess the impact and effectiveness of its programs and initiatives. Insight—

• Conducted semistructured interviews with state education agencies and/or Chief State School Officers
• Conducted telephone surveys with State Title III Coordinators
• Evaluated and analyzed data from all conferences, webinars, and workshops provided by the laboratory through customer satisfaction survey forms

Insight’s dissemination evaluation reports helped assess the laboratory’s effectiveness in reaching its stakeholders and identify the immediate and long-term impacts of the lab’s research.

Products

• Report, Results From the REL-Appalachia Title III Coordinator Telephone Survey (March 2009)
• Report, Results From the REL-Appalachia West Virginia Prekindergarten Report Telephone Survey (September 2009)
• Report, Changing Role of Regional Educational Service Agencies in Supporting Rural School Improvement (November 2009)