Data Analysis for Project Topeka

Project Topeka seeks to test tools and approaches to support teachers and students to improve writing through increased practice and feedback. The project will offer teachers a free, online, automated essay-scoring service that equips them with whole class or individualized insights into students’ argumentative writing challenges while providing real time feedback to students when they write in ways that drive increased revision and practice. The research team from the University of Michigan Marsal Family School of Education will function as a core research and analysis partner to Project Topeka, maintaining a research dataset and conducting analyses that will enable the Topeka team to understand important insights about student and teacher use of the tools and supports, and resulting outcomes as the project progresses. This will lead to a longer-term research plan to address rigorously the answers to the critical research questions the project is trying to build evidence around. Finally, the U-M team will develop a plan to make the Topeka dataset available to other researchers.