Matthew Kraft, assistant professor of education, has received two national awards for research projects on teaching. He shares one with John Papay, assistant professor of education and economics, who was co-author on a paper on teacher development.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Matthew Kraft, assistant professor of education, has received two national awards for research projects on teacher development and impact.

Kraft, together with John Papay, assistant professor of education and economics, received a Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award from the American Educational Research Association for the article “Can Professional Environments in Schools Promote Teacher Development? Explaining Heterogeneity in Returns to Teaching Experience,” published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis in December 2014.

Kraft was also named one of five recipients of a 2015 William T. Grant Scholars award for a project on “Teacher Effects on Students’ Non-Cognitive Competencies: A Study of Impacts, Instruction, and Improvement.”

The program supports the professional development of promising early career researchers in the social, behavioral, and health sciences. Recipients receive $350,000 to execute rigorous five-year research plans that stretch their skills and knowledge into new disciplines, content areas, or methods.

As part of his analysis Kraft will be estimating teachers’ effects on non-cognitive competencies such as grit, growth mindset, effort in class, and happiness in class. These factors are known to matter for students’ long-term life outcomes but little is known about whether and how teachers affect these competencies not measured by standardized tests.