Researchers working on the First in the World project—run by CAUSE: Consortium for the Advancement of Underrepresented Student Engagement and made possible by the U.S. Department of Education and its programs—recently presented two propensity score matching (PSM) webinars for members of the National Association of Assessment Directors (NAAD). Professor and department chair Geoffrey Maruyama and Ph.D. students in the psychological foundations of education program—Anthony Schulzetenberg, Isabel Lopez, and Wei Song—along with Jason Johnson, a Ph.D. student in Organizational Leadership Policy (not pictured), presented to the group.

Propensity score matching (PSM) is a quasi-experimental statistical approach that attempts to create comparable treatment and control groups by controlling on background and other variables thought to be related to participation in programs and thereby allow better estimation of the effect of a treatment, policy, or other intervention.

“The experiences the students had in preparing the webinars provided an opportunity for them to consolidate their knowledge and think about how to explain the methods to people who were less knowledgeable,” says Maruyama. “We all will be repeating the webinars for all the recipients of First in The World grants this May.”