Applicant Information, Selection, and
STEM Teacher Retention and Effectiveness

This mixed-methods project, funded by the National Science Foundation's Noyce grant program, is a collaboration between the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research at the American Institutes for Research, the Education Research and Data Center (ERDC) at the Washington State Office of Financial Management, and several Washington State institutions of higher education (IHEs): Central Washington University, Pacific Lutheran University, University of Washington, Washington State University, and Western Washington University. The project addresses connections between the attributes of potential teacher candidates; their admittance and enrollment in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) teacher education programs; and their later retention and effectiveness as STEM teachers. This project is made possible by statewide data on students and teachers in Washington—provided by the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB)—along with data already collected on teacher candidates from teacher education programs (TEPs) in IHEs in the state of Washington and data provided as part of this project by the five collaborating IHEs that include admissions data on all applicants to these universities and/or their TEPs. The data will also be combined with transcript data provided by ERDC and qualitative data collected from College of Education STEM faculty and Arts and Sciences affiliated STEM faculty at collaborating IHEs.