Resource Library

What does “curriculum” mean when applied to working with infants and toddlers?

This brief discusses the meaning of the term when applied to early education and care programs serving families with infants and toddlers. The discussion focuses on how programs can incorporate and use the concepts of a curriculum in a way that is developmentally appropriate for infants and toddlers...

Policymakers and practitioners have a growing interest in answering questions beyond simply “does a program work?” They are also interested in learning how programs work. Mediation analysis is one tool that researchers can use to identify elements of an intervention that do, or do not, lead to improved participant outcomes. Researchers can use the results of a mediation analysis to build knowledge to improve programs...

Policymakers are increasingly interested in using administrative data to address policy-relevant research questions. While researchers generally prefer individual-level administrative data in order to provide maximum flexibility to their analyses, it can be both difficult and costly to obtain. When individual-level data are not available or are too difficult or costly, aggregate administrative data can address many policy-relevant research questions...

Policymakers are increasingly interested in using administrative data to address policy-relevant research questions. In order to make use of administrative data for social policy research, there are multiple issues to consider...

Administrative data have the potential to help us answer pressing social policy questions. Government stakeholders and researchers are exploring the promises of using administrative data for research purposes.

This brief summarizes an Innovative Methods Meeting that was organized by OPRE in the fall of 2015 that considered the potential benefits and pitfalls of using administrative data for research purposes...

In this video roundtable, government experts and experienced researchers discuss the opportunities and challenges presented when using administrative data for social policy research. Topics include: tips for planning administrative data research; working with (federal and state) data custodians; negotiating data...

In the fall of 2014, OPRE organized an Innovative Methods meeting to explore cutting-edge applications of methods and analytic techniques that can inform social program practice and policy. This brief summarizes the meeting and includes..

Historically, tribal communities have used storytelling to share language, traditions, and beliefs from one generation to another. Tribal social service programs and other human service programs can build on this rich tradition by using stories within a qualitative research framework. This report explores opportunities, considerations, and methods for using storytelling to understand and communicate information about social service programs in tribal communities...

This research brief summarizes the state of the field on cultural competence in social services. The information is relevant for organizations serving children and families from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds, but the brief highlights research and strategies in serving Hispanic populations. The brief describes cultural competence and provides service providers and administrators with concrete strategies for the ongoing self-reflection and development that is key to strengthening...

The grouping "Hispanic" often makes it challenging to observe important social experiences that relate strongly to the needs, service experiences, and outcomes of interest to ACF for various Hispanic subgroups. Existing federal surveys do not consistently collect data to sufficiently examine how Hispanic ethnicity interacts with other socio-cultural experiences or how it relates to specific outcomes. Because current measurement is inadequate to differentiate characteristics within...