Anja Kurki

Managing Researcher

Anja Kurki has extensive research project management experience and has led various tasks including recruitment, large-scale data collections, data analyses, and report writing on several randomized controlled trials funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and the U.S. Department of Education. She currently works as the project director for the IES-funded Good Behavioral Game Professional Development Models study, managing all aspects of the study including recruitment, data collection, analyses and result dissemination.

In addition, Dr. Kurki led the recruitment task for the IES-funded Teacher and Leader Evaluation Systems study, overseeing development of recruitment materials, training, and the recruitment of districts and schools. She was AIR’s project director for the recently completed teacher level randomized trial The Impact of Collaborative Strategic Reading on the Reading Comprehension of Grade 5 Students in Linguistically Diverse Schools.

Dr. Kurki has extensive experience in research design (both experimental and quasi-experimental), instrument development (including classroom observation protocol systems and web-based data collection and reporting systems), and analysis of complex data, including multilevel modeling, missing data analysis and imputation, and propensity scoring.

Expertise
Education

Ph.D., Government and Politics, University of Maryland, College Park; M.A., Political Science, University of Turku, Finland

Contact Anja Kurki

+1.202.403.5000
Related Work

Can Texting Parents Improve Attendance in Elementary School? A Test of an Adaptive Messaging Strategy

15 Sep 2020
Chronic absence is a nationwide problem, even among young students. Those with poor attendance are more likely to face challenges later in school and in life. This study tested four versions of an adaptive text messaging strategy to see which, if any, would reduce chronic absence among 26,000 elementary school ...

Can Texting Parents Improve Attendance in Elementary School? A Test of an Adaptive Messaging Strategy

Chronic absence is a nationwide problem, even among young students. Those with poor attendance are more likely to face challenges later in school and in life. This study tested four versions of an adaptive text messaging strategy to see which, if any, would reduce chronic absence among 26,000 elementary school ...

Six Years and Counting: The ECHSI Matures (2009)

01 Aug 2009
This is the fifth annual synthesis report for the Early College High School Initiative. A brief overview shows that although the ECHSI continued to grow in terms of the number of schools participating, the growth was slower than in prior years. It also is clear that fewer ECSs are opening ...

Measuring and Explaining the Fidelity of CSR Implementation

11 Apr 2005
Comprehensive school reform (CSR) is only as effective as its implementation. By using data collected for the National Longitudinal Evaluation of Comprehensive School Reform, this study explores how CSR model implementation varies as well as what factors predict CSR model implementation.

Beyond Free Lunch—Alternative Poverty Measures in Educational Research and Program Evaluation

11 Apr 2005
Most education studies use a simple and convenient measure of poverty: the percentage of children eligible for free/reduced-price lunch. Although this measure provides the proportion of children coming from disadvantaged backgrounds, it does not capture all dimensions of poverty, such as neighborhood effects. ...