Letters to Noyce Respondents

Dear PI,
As an awardee of the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, we want to take this
time to introduce you to Abt Associates Inc. We are pleased to announce that Abt
Associates Inc and its subsidiary Abt-SRBI have been selected to conduct a third party
program level evaluation of the NSF Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program.
Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Abt Associates is a recognized leader in policy,
consulting, and program evaluation. For the past 20 years, Abt Associates, Inc has
conducted evaluation studies for the National Science Foundation, including many
studies of STEM teacher preparation programs, such as Centers for Learning and
Teaching (CLT), Teacher Professional Continuum (TPC), Graduate Fellows in K-12
Education (GK-12), and Discovery Research K-12 (DRK-12).
As mentioned in the program solicitation, all projects are expected to cooperate with an
NSF third party program evaluation that will require participation in an annual data
collection. Ellen Bobronnikov of Abt Associates is the Project Director for this effort
and will be contacting you in the future for your assistance in providing information
about your Noyce project. The program evaluation is guided by a set of evaluation
questions concerning the impact and effectiveness of the program. It is expected that the
program evaluation will contribute to an understanding of strategies that are successful in
attracting and retaining effective teachers with strong STEM content knowledge.
Request for information to support the program evaluation will be in addition to annual
and/or final reports and information submitted to the Noyce Program Monitoring System.
We look forward to working with the Abt evaluation team in the program evaluation of
the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program. If you have any concerns or questions
about the program evaluation, please contact Connie Kubo Della-Piana
([email protected]) who is a Program Director in the Division of Undergraduate
Education and is the program manager for the program evaluation.
Regards,
Joan Prival
Lead Program Director
Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program
Division of Undergraduate Education
Connie Kubo Della-Piana
Program Director, Evaluation
Division of Undergraduate Education.

[Date]
RE:

Evaluation of the Robert Noyce Scholarship Program

Dear [Noyce PI]:
This letter is a follow-up to the email you received in the fall from Joan Prival and Connie Kubo
Della-Piana of the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program office describing plans for the
third party program level evaluation of the NSF Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program.
Abt Associates is working with the National Science Foundation to conduct this evaluation. It is
expected that the program evaluation will contribute to an understanding of strategies that are
successful in attracting and retaining effective teachers with strong science and/or mathematics
content knowledge.
We will be surveying Principal Investigators, STEM faculty, Noyce recipients, and K-12
administrators of schools where teachers with current or previous support from Noyce are
working in the fall of 2010 to try to learn more about the Noyce Program and the effects it is
having on the teacher preparation program, as well as teacher recruitment, retention, and
leadership activities. All surveys will be conducted through an on-line survey system. Each
respondent will receive an individual email from us requesting their participation in the study;
you will not be asked to contact anyone.
We are writing at this time to request your assistance. From the annual Noyce monitoring data
you fill out, we have a list of all current and former scholarship and stipend recipients [and
interns] associated with your grant as well as the number of STEM faculty members involved in
your Noyce project. We are hoping that you will be able to provide us with contact information
for the Noyce recipients and the names of the STEM faculty so that we will be able to contact
them about participating in the surveys. We would appreciate it if you can enter this information
in a secure online web portal. You can access the web portal by clicking on the link below. If
clicking the link does not take you to the portal, you may need to copy and paste the link onto
your web browser. You can log into the portal by entering the Username and Password noted
below.
http://srbireports.com/Noyce/login.aspx
Username and Password for [Title of Project]
Username: [Award id]
Password [
]
Once you log into the web portal, you will note that it includes two tabs: one labeled Student,
and one labeled Faculty.

55 Wheeler Street  Cambridge, Massachusetts USA  02138-1168  617 492-7100 telephone  617 492-5219 facsimile

In the Student tab, we have included the names of all recipients entered into the Noyce
monitoring system as participating in your grant. To help you identify these recipients, we have
also provided information on the year they initially received their internship, scholarship, stipend,
or fellowship; the type of support they received: the year they completed their teacher preparation
(if at all): and whether they are currently teaching. Please verify that this list of Noyce recipients
is correct, and then enter their primary e-mail address, secondary e-mail address (if applicable),
address, and phone number. If any current or past Noyce recipients are not included on this list,
please add their name, the year they first received support, the type of support they received, and
their e-mail address, mailing address, and phone number. If any recipient should not be included
in this list, please click on the ‘Delete’ Button to remove them from this list.
In the Faculty tab, we would like to develop a list of the names of all STEM faculty members
who are currently involved in your Noyce program. This includes any faculty member who
participates in the development and implementation of the project through activities such as
serving on the leadership team, conducting activities or courses, recruiting and/or selecting Noyce
support recipients, and mentoring and/or monitoring Noyce support recipients. For each STEM
faculty member involved in your Noyce Program, please provide us with their names,
departments and institution names.
We would appreciate it if you could complete the requested information by XX, 2010. If you
already have a document that lists the contact information for all current and former Noyce
recipients, you may send us this document by email at [email protected] instead of
entering it into the web portal, and just enter the names of STEM faculty involved in the program,
If you need technical support for the online web portal, please contact us at
[email protected].
The success of the evaluation will depend on our ability to identify and locate as many
respondents as possible so we can learn about the effects of the program across awards. We will
be providing more information about the surveys in the fall.
If you have any questions about this important evaluation, please do not hesitate to contact Ellen
Bobronnikov, the Project Director, by e-mail at [email protected] or by
telephone at 617-349-2718. Additionally, you can contact Connie Kubo Della-Piana
([email protected]) who is a Program Director in the Division of Undergraduate Education of the
National Science Foundation and is the program officer for the program evaluation.
On behalf of the National Science Foundation, thank you for your help!
Sincerely,

Ellen Bobronnikov
Noyce Evaluation Project Director,
Abt Associates Inc.
617-349-2718 (phone)
617-386-8329 (fax)
[email protected]

The National Study of the National Science Foundation’s
Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program
Abt Associates, an independent private research firm, is conducting a third party program level
evaluation of the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program for the National Science Foundation
(NSF). This evaluation will examine how institutions of higher education are implementing
activities funded through the Noyce program, and how the program as a whole is attracting and
retaining science and math teachers.
Your cooperation and participation are essential to helping the NSF to learn about the Robert
Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program.
The evaluation will…
 Document the value of the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship program for interested parties
such as the federal government. NSF will use information from this evaluation to inform
future funding of the Noyce Program.
 Enable you to learn how your Noyce project fits in with the broader context of Noyce
projects nationally.
 Describe outcomes of the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship program for scholarship and
stipend recipients and host institutions.
Evaluation Activities and Schedule:
Spring 2010:
Summer/Fall 2010:
Fall 2010/2011:
Winter 2011/2012
Spring 2011/2012:
Fall 2012:

Finalize study design and prepare contact database
Prepare online surveys
Administer online surveys of Principal Investigators, STEM
faculty, Noyce recipients, and K-12 administrators
Conduct interviews with a sample of Principal Investigators,
STEM faculty, and Noyce recipients
Analyze data
Prepare final report

Key Study Personnel:
Connie Kubo Della-Piana
Noyce Evaluation Program Officer
National Science Foundation
[email protected]

Ellen Bobronnikov
Noyce Evaluation Project Director
Abt Associates Inc.
617-349-2718 (phone)
617-386-8329 (fax)
[email protected]