The state longitudinal data systems provide the potential for a wide range of research studies to address practice and policy issues in STEM education. The PIs of this study from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University are coordinating a research collaborative to expand the use of individual-level administrative data from five sources, including social services, child care quality, and educational data, and to coordinate with efforts in the state of Virginia to expand the interoperability of data. They are structuring a research panel to conceptualize the best use of administrative data to test scientific models across a number of STEM education research agendas. The PIs are developing a design data interface and analytic tools to increase research capacity. Finally, they are coordinating data governance structures and processes to provide for procedures for system use by academic researchers.
While the technical infrastructure of state longitudinal data systems has had wide support and made considerable progress over the past 10 years, the potential for these data to be used by educational and social scientist researchers has not kept pace. This project informs the knowledge base of how state administrative data can be coordinated and integrated to address research agendas more systematically. Multiple policy and practice research questions that look at student persistence and learning trajectories, evaluation of interventions, and workforce development efforts have the potential to be informed by research communities that are more systematically leveraging integrated longitudinal data.
