Senior Education Researcher, SRI Education
Elisa Garcia, PhD, is an education researcher in SRI’s Education Division. She is an expert in the development of early language and literacy, social-emotional, and executive functioning skills, with a focus on diverse populations such as dual language learners. She also has expertise in quantitative data analysis, including experimental and quasi-experimental design, and analyses of complex, multilevel data.
At SRI, Garcia is the PI of an evaluation of the impacts of mobile messaging programs on responsive caregiving practices of parents of young children. She co-leads two large-scale U.S. Department of Education-funded evaluations of social-emotional learning interventions. One is an Institute for Education Sciences (IES)-funded effectiveness study of the Tools for Getting Along social problem-solving curriculum for elementary students, and the other is an Education Innovation Research mid-phase evaluation of the Pyramid Model curriculum for preschoolers and kindergarteners. She is a researcher on the evaluation of the Ready to Learn Initiative, for which she contributes to the development of survey instruments and co-leads data analyses for summative and formative evaluations of digital media to support early learning. As part of the Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands, she has contributed to providing technical assistance to the Connecticut State Department of Education through conducting case studies and interviews to understand special education referrals among English learners.
Before joining SRI, Garcia conducted analyses of nationally representative datasets to examine the early vocabulary development of low-income dual language learners attending Head Start. She has partnered with the San Francisco Unified School District to help the Early Education Department model and understand early literacy achievement.
Garcia received her BA in psychology from Kenyon College. She earned her PhD in developmental and psychological science from the Stanford Graduate School of Education, where she was an IES predoctoral training fellow in quantitative policy analysis.
Key projects
- Mobile Messaging for Responsive Caregiving
- Effectiveness Study of Tools for Getting Along
- Scaling up Implementation of the Pyramid Model
- Evaluation of the Ready to Learn Initiative
Recent publications
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Sparking Connections: Evaluations of Mobile Messaging on Responsive Caregiving
Mobile messaging programs are a low-cost, scalable approach to building parents’ knowledge and capacity to support their children’s development. These programs directly deliver simple and straightforward information, tips, and activities that parents can incorporate into daily routines.
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Leveraging Flexible Teacher Certification Policies to Address the Bilingual Teacher Shortage
In this brief, the authors share strategies that state education agencies may use to provide more flexibility in teacher certification policies and thereby mitigate bilingual teacher shortages.
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The Efficacy of Digital Media Resources in Improving Children’s Ability to Use Informational Text: An Evaluation of Molly of Denali from PBS KIDS
Two nine-week trials with a national sample of 263 first-graders examined whether free educational videos and digital games supported children’s ability to use informational text to answer real-world questions.
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National Picture of the Self-Determination Characteristics of Secondary School English Learners With Disabilities
We examined the self-determination of English learners with disabilities in secondary school, based on a secondary analysis of the National Longitudinal Transition Study 2012 (NLTS 2012).
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Comparing Parent Report and Telemetry Measures of Child Media Use
Accurate measurement of children’s media use is critical for understanding media effects on child outcomes.
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Early science and engineering: The impact of The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! on Learning
This study explores whether providing families with access to PBS KIDS The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! ™ activities can help children learn physical science and engineering concepts and practices.