Margaret (Peggy) Clements

Senior Researcher

Margaret (Peggy) Clements is a senior researcher at AIR. Drawing on her training in developmental psychology, community psychology, and quantitative research methods, she investigates the effective and equitable use of educational technology to support teaching and learning. In her work, Dr. Clements emphasizes building deep working relationships among policymakers, practitioners, and researchers and developing rigorous studies that respond to the highest priority needs of educators.

Dr. Clements was the lead researcher for the Regional Educational Laboratory Midwest’s Virtual Education Research Alliance from its inception in 2012 through 2015, overseeing multiple collaborative research and technical assistance projects exploring K–12 online learning. She has served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on multiple, large-scale, rigorous studies, including the Institute of Education Sciences (IES)–funded studies Access to Algebra I: The Effects of Online Mathematics for Grade 8 Students, for which she led all implementation research activities, and An Examination of the Impact of Big Math for Little Kids on Pre-K and Kindergarten Students’ Learning of Math. Other recent work includes Playing with Data, a National Science Foundation (NSF)–funded study that examined how to support middle school science teachers in their interpretation and use of digital, game-based formative assessment data to enhance student learning, and Eliciting Mathematics Misconceptions, an IES–funded project to develop a cognitive diagnostic assessment system for middle-grade rational number topics.

Prior to joining AIR, Dr. Clements was a senior research scientist at Education Development Center (EDC). In addition to leading her own studies, while at EDC she served as the supervising quantitative research methodologist on several large-scale, rigorous studies, including the IES–funded summative impact study for Possible Worlds: A National Research and Development Center on Instructional Technology, and Advancing Biology Education for Online Professional Development, an NSF–funded study that examined the impact of an online professional development course on teachers’ content and pedagogical knowledge.

Expertise
Education
Mathematics Education
Technology for Teaching and Learning

Ph.D. and M.A., Psychology, New York University, Psychology; A.B., Women’s Studies, Barnard College, Columbia University

Contact Margaret (Peggy) Clements

+1.202.403.5000
Related Work

Lessons Learned: What Research Shows About Students’ Experiences with Online Learning

29 Oct 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic caused unprecedented school closures throughout the United States, prompting educators to search for ways to meet the needs of children and families outside the bounds of traditional school walls. AIR has studied online learning for more than a decade, and although none of our studies took place ...

Student Engagement in Math Blended Learning Study

Increasingly, schools across the United States are using innovative educational technologies to increase students’ learning. However, there is still a lot to learn about these tools and their impact on teaching and learning in the classroom. AIR is conducting a study to better understand student engagement and learning when math ...
Image of older students at computer

Assessing the Efficacy of Online Credit Recovery on Student Learning and High School Graduation

School districts across the country are increasingly using online courses to expand credit recovery options for high school students who need to get back on track toward graduation. In partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District, AIR is working to provide evidence for practitioners and policymakers about how a ...

The Effect of Online Versus Face-to-Face Credit Recovery in Algebra on High School Credit Accumulation and Graduation

30 Jun 2017
This research brief, the fifth from the Back on Track study, extends the analysis presented in the first brief to compare educational outcomes through the fourth year of high school for students who took an online credit recovery course and those who took a face-to-face credit recovery course.

Course Progression for Students Who Fail Algebra I in Ninth Grade

30 Jun 2017
This research brief, the sixth from the Back on Track study, describes the course progression of students who failed Algebra I in ninth grade in the large urban school district where the study took place, to help determine the importance of Algebra I failure and recovery for student success in ...
Diverse group of teenage students outside

CompuPower Investing in Innovation Evaluation

The CompuPower program was developed by Kimberly Scott and her colleagues at Arizona State University to address a need for culturally responsive computing courses. AIR served as the project’s external evaluator to evaluate the CompuPower program’s impact on students’ social-emotional skills and academic achievement, as well as examine whether the ...

Comparing the Effectiveness of Online and Face-to-Face Credit Recovery in Algebra I

08 Apr 2016
This research brief, the first from the Back on Track study, compares educational outcomes through the second year of high school for students who took an online credit recovery course and those who took a face-to-face credit recovery course.

The Role of In-Person Instructional Support for Students Taking Online Credit Recovery

07 Apr 2016
This research brief, the second from the Back on Track study, describes the role of in-class mentors in the online classrooms and examines whether students benefited from additional instructional support from their in-class mentors.

Getting Back on Track: Who Needs to Recover Algebra Credit After Ninth Grade?

07 Apr 2016
This research brief, the third from the Back on Track study, describes the characteristics of students who failed Algebra I in ninth grade in the large urban school district where the study took place, to better understand the population of students who are served by credit recovery courses.

Access to Algebra I: The Effects of Online Mathematics for Grade 8 Students

This study, conducted by AIR and Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) for the Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands (REL-NEI), tested the impact of expanding access to Algebra I to grade 8 students by offering an online course in schools that do not typically offer Algebra I in grade. ...