Senior Research Coordinator, California Project

University of Chicago•Chicago, CA

7d•Hybrid

About The Position

The TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health at the University of Chicago develops, tests, and implements evidence-based interventions designed to promote very young children’s cognitive and social-emotional development, with a priority placed on that of children living in poverty. TMW Center interventions are designed to be overlaid onto existing health, education, and social service systems working at scale in a given community in order to meet families where they already are. The TMW Center has a robust research and development strategy that includes further development and testing of TMW interventions; harnessing technology to support behavior change, intervention engagement, and analysis; and furthering strategies to engage adult caregivers (parents, early educators and others) in the TMW Center’s interventions across the health, early learning, and social service sectors. The TMW Center is partnering with a nonprofit child development agency to conduct field research and implementation in California infant/toddler child care and preschool settings. The project will use a novel technology and professional development model to support teachers and demonstrate how teachers’ language inputs in birth-to-3 child care settings lead to positive child outcomes. This work will generate learnings and inform a classroom implementation and professional development model. This role will be based in California, with travel throughout the San Francisco Bay Area (with most work in the first year in Palo Alto) and potential occasional travel to other states (Illinois and Connecticut). The Senior Research Coordinator will report to the Senior Project Manager and shall provide on-the-ground management, implementation, and research support. The Senior Research Coordinator will work closely with California-based infant/toddler childcare and preschool providers as well as TMW Center research and curriculum staff. The Senior Research Coordinator will be responsible for managing the on-the-ground activities, including implementation and technical support for study participants, data collection (including administering assessments with children enrolled in the study), and operational and logistical coordination of various study activities. As the primary on-the-ground point of contact for the partner organization, the Senior Research Coordinator will build positive relationships with childcare centers, classroom teachers, families and partner organization staff to ensure strong communication and a successful partnership with the TMW Center. Significant field work consisting primarily of regular site visits to child care centers and study participants will be required. Typically, other work will be completed from home. At times almost 90% of time may be spent working in the field. Site visits will be required at varying times across child care center operating hours, approximately 7:30am to 5:30pm. Additionally, some evening or weekend hours will be required to facilitate assessments, participant consent sessions, or other activities. This role may also support ongoing work on a related project in Connecticut, including potentially occasional travel to Connecticut to conduct child assessments.

Requirements

College or university degree in related field.
2-5 years of work experience in a related job discipline.
Valid driver's license.
Knowledge and skills developed through work experience or training in early education, early childhood systems, applied research, or related discipline.
Ability to multi-task and manage multiple projects simultaneously.
Firm understanding of current best-practice pedagogy related to language development instruction, as well as some familiarity with quality improvement strategies, professional learning practices and tools (such as Teaching Strategies Gold, CLASS, LENA etc.).
Has general awareness in research techniques, survey research methods or methods and relevant scientific knowledge.
Strong organizational and interpersonal skills, and high attention to detail.
Ability to work collaboratively and respectfully with colleagues, especially those of differing backgrounds.
Verbal and written ability to communicate in Spanish.
Ability and comfort level with establishing rapport with children in infant/toddler and preschool classes.

Nice To Haves

Experience in early childhood research or early education.
Prior teaching and/or administrative experience within early childhood classroom settings (e.g., an accredited childcare center, Head Start Center, Pre-K, etc.).
Experience in a research lab or setting.
Previous work with children desirable.

Responsibilities

Builds and nurtures relationships with child care centers, classroom teachers, families, partner organization staff and other stakeholders to ensure strong communication and ultimate success between the TMW Center and these individuals and groups.
Serves as an ambassador of the TMW Center’s mission and resources to partners, families/caregivers, and the public.
Manages all on-site activities to successfully implement project deliverables.
Ensures relevant partner organization staff members are properly trained for project implementation.
Implements data collection and entry best practices, monitors for a high level of reliability, and ensures fidelity of implementation of assessments.
Participates in meetings and planning sessions to share implementation observations and provide updates to inform program and process improvement.
Serves as a primary point of contact for participants.
Maintains regular contact with participants, updating them on progress and ensuring that their contact information is updated.
Maintains records of all communication efforts.
Supports consent process for program participants in accordance with IRB protocol and TMW research standards.
Ensures ongoing and new research subjects are onboarded properly and promptly.
Regularly reports updates on participant recruitment and project progress to relevant parties.
Supports other aspects of outreach, recruitment, consent, data collection and support as requested.
Provides implementation support, coaching, and training to participants, ensuring that activities are delivered with fidelity and that technical support is available promptly.
Visits sites for routine and as-needed in-person observation activities and support.
Provides technical assistance, troubleshooting and on-call technical and implementation support to participants, ensuring proper implementation and delivery of TMW technology and program.
Tracks data related to these processes and other aspects of implementation.
Supports TMW Curriculum and Training team by coordinating and/or facilitating training sessions and regular meetings for implementing staff.
Engages with participants and other partners to collect data and gather user feedback to inform device optimization, program refinement, professional development model and implementation model.
Implements data collection at the direction of TMW Center staff.
Ensures quality of data collection and adherence to best practices.
Facilitates and coordinates classroom-based research activities.
Distributes technology and assists with inventory management, coordination and delivery logistics for technological devices and other materials provided to study sites.
Stores some materials at a secure home office location.
Issues payments and other incentives to study participants across TMW Center projects.
Ensures all payments are issued correctly and tracked with fidelity.
Ensures full compliance with all University and funder obligations related to human subject payments and record-keeping.
Conducts 1:1 in-person child assessments.
Administers cognitive and non-cognitive assessments.
Communicates with school partners to set up the assessment schedule and procedures with each classroom and teacher.
Provides observations and assessment updates to the research team.
Provides other support as needed to accomplish other related study goals.
Executes annotation and review workflows to support validation of data science algorithms.
Supports with reviewing agreement between annotators; resolve disagreements by making judgment calls or assigning a third annotator when needed.
Applies research principles and relevant subject matter knowledge relevant to administer a research project.
With a moderate level of direction, manages lab and/or research-related duties and tasks.
Helps develop, design and conduct research projects according to plan.
Supports data collection and analytical needs of research projects.
Ensures project compliance with different policies, procedures, directives, and mandates.
Takes responsibility for the following non-laboratory duties: transcribing and coding data; developing data collection instruments; presenting research; and recruiting and scheduling research subjects.
Acquires higher-level skills and knowledge in the process.
Takes responsibility for the following laboratory duties: recognizing abnormal results and varying conditions or procedures to correct problems; setting up and performing experiments.
Analyze the meaning, significance, causes, and effects of the subject.
Performs other related work as needed.