Education Researcher

The Education Researcher will assist the Educational Gaming Environments (EdGE) team at TERC with NSF-funded research activities in the areas of educational data mining, differentiated learning, and computational thinking. This may include working with students’ game data from the popular game Zoombinis, observing teachers and learners in grades 3-8, and working with multimodal data and learners with cognitive differences.

Specifically, this person will work with the EdGE team and collaborators to:

• Manage, clean/pre-process, engineer features, and mine/analyze a variety of educational data.
• Evaluate existing research instruments and, when needed, design new instruments (surveys, video coding schemes, logs, rubrics, observation protocols).
• Conduct literature reviews for papers, conference proposals, and grant proposals.
• Conduct qualitative classroom observations and analyses.
• Write descriptions of research analyses for publication and conference submissions.
• Present research findings at conferences.
• Complete other research tasks as needed. This may include coding interaction data, monitoring data collection, collecting playtesting data, and/or recruiting study participants.

Requirements include:

• Ph.D. in educational data mining, learning analytics, quantitative methods in education, or related fields. ABDs close to completion will be considered.
• Extensive experience using R, Python, or similar tools for statistical analysis and data mining, specifically multilevel modeling and classification algorithms.
• Experience managing, cleaning/pre-processing, and analyzing a variety of educational data such as interaction log data, eye-tracking data, surveys, interviews, videos, teacher classroom logs.
• Publication record commensurate with a recent Ph.D. student, including several first authored papers.
• Comfort working with a geographically distributed leadership team—requires a high degree of independence and initiative, strong time management skills, and clear communication.

Preferred interests/experiences:

• Strong interest in developing own line of research that builds on EdGE’s work.
• Research interests that would complement EdGE’s current and potential future work include designing learning experiences and assessments for students with cognitive differences, neuroscience in education, computer science education, and game-based learning.
• Proficiency with other statistical/data mining tools, data visualization tools, and programming languages, including Rapid Miner, SPSS and Tableau, and the ability to learn new technologies and methods quickly as needed to analyze, mine, and visualize data.
• Training in qualitative observation and analysis.
• K-12 math, science, or computer science teaching experience.

This position will range from 50-100% depending on the preferences of the candidate and the availability of funds.

Salary commensurate with experience and training. Competitive benefits package. Interested parties should send a cover letter, resume, and writing sample by email to: Kelly_Paulson@terc.edu. No phone calls and no recruiter or agency inquiries please.

(Job Ref. #18-04)

TERC is an equal opportunity employer, and is actively seeking to diversify its staff. We place a high priority on developing a staff that reflects the diverse communities we serve. We encourage people from all backgrounds to apply.