Research Specialist; Evaluation Research Analyst

Overview

At the Rutgers University Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, we provide the nation's highest quality doctoral education and training, which develops outstanding practitioners and fosters personal leadership to advance the practice and field of professional psychology. Since the establishment of our Psychological Clinic in 1929 and the school's founding in 1974, we have become the "gold standard" in the education and training of qualified and competent direct-service psychologists.

The mission of GSAPP is threefold: education, research/scholarship, and public service. Its goal is to prepare well-educated, qualified, and competent direct-service psychologists who have a special commitment to direct community involvement and to underserved populations—professionals who can integrate scientific knowledge with innovation in the delivery of psychological services to individuals, families, groups, and organizations.

Posting

Summary:

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey is seeking a Research Specialist (Evaluation Research Analyst) for Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology (GSAPP). In collaboration with multiple school districts, GSAPP is implementing multiple Project AWARE (Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education) grants from SAMHSA. The projects aim to build school districts  capacity to implement a comprehensive multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) for student mental health in collaboration with school personnel, community-based providers of behavioral health care services, community organizations, families and youth.

The project will promote the healthy social and emotional development of PreK-12 grade students.

Among the key duties of the position are the following:

• Leads the evaluation of the grants and coordinates tasks.
• Ensures human subjects protection and confidentiality procedures, data administration, and data management and analysis.
• Coordinates evaluation research over the course of 5 years.
• Coordinates the design and implementation of a comprehensive evaluation aligned with project goals and objectives.
• Familiarizes with the background, mechanics, and outcomes of multiple measures used in the design of the project and uses this familiarity to facilitate project design and implementation.
• Coordinates across the school district and Rutgers teams.
• Participates in the design and implementation of technology tools to streamline data collection and analysis with district data sources.
• Ensures all procedures related to data entry and data quality control are followed.
• Designs and generates extant project databases from the AWARE projects to be used for overall project performance evaluation.
• Leads all evaluation, monitoring, and quality improvement activities for the grant. Responsible for quarterly and annual reporting to SAMHSA.
• Handles general administrative duties, conducts literature searches, and collects scientifically and empirically supported relevant data to assist in evaluation reports, manuscripts, and conference presentation preparation. Opportunities for grant writing are included.

Minimum Education and Experience

Masters or doctorate in quantitative methods, education, educational psychology, school psychology, clinical psychology, measurement, public health, or an equivalent combination of education and/or experience.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Knowledge and experience in both small and large-scale data administration and manipulation. Knowledge of evaluation research design in education settings and experience in conducting both small-scale and large-scale school-based evaluation research.
• Advanced mastery of Microsoft Excel and at least two statistical packages (e.g., SPSS, SAS, AMOS, MPlus, R) common to the social sciences.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Experience with growth modeling, hierarchical linear modeling, and structural equation modeling. Knowledge of statistical software such as SAS, SPSS, AMOS, MPlus, R and structural equation modeling.
• Experience with Google-based data collection systems (e.g., Google Forms), Excel, and Qualtrics is helpful as well.

Prefer…