WHAT WE DO: Research

CFY has been conducting University-level research since early in our development. In fact, unlike most other organizations, we began building our research department less than one year after launching our operations in 1999. This department now operates with four objectives:

To assess the impact of our program on participating families
To guide CFY management in program development

To contribute to the research literature and encourage additional research on the home learning environment
To help shape local and national education policy

Our Research Tools and Instruments

To fully assess impact, CFY’s research department collects test score and demographic data from our partner school districts. We also collect data from students, parents, teachers and principals. Our research instruments include:

Participant intake and follow-up surveys

Focus group and interview protocols

Interval contingent recording (daily computer-use journals)

Standardized test scores and demographic data from the school districts

Our Research Analysis

CFY’s research department analyzes data using statistical methods, “grading” of responses to pre- and post-prompts, and thematic coding of qualitative data derived from open-ended responses on the surveys, interviews, and daily computer-use journals.

Our Research Partnerships and Contributions to the Field

In 2006, CFY launched a research partnership with the Educational Testing Service (ETS), one of the largest and most respected education companies in the world. To date, CFY has published research findings in numerous papers and has presented them at conferences including the American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference and the Consortium of School Networking (CoSN) conference.