Principal Senior Researcher and Early Childhood Program Leader, SRI Education
Erika Gaylor, PhD, uses mixed-methods designs to study both the implementation and impact of policies, programs, and practices affecting young children and their families with expertise in developmental assessments, early literacy and math, social-emotional competence, and high-quality instruction and environments. Gaylor and colleagues have collaborated with several states to explore innovative policies and programs that increase access to, and improve the quality of, early care and education (ECE) programs for young children. This work has included a study of a pilot program to provide scholarships for low-income families to use at high-quality ECE programs and several projects exploring Pay for Success financing as a means to expand access to evidence-based high-quality early learning opportunities. Gaylor served as the principal investigator of a recently completed 4-year comprehensive evaluation of the Preschool Development Grant in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Current projects include leading the data collection of an EIR-funded expansion grant to examine the scale-up of a preschool math curriculum for low-income children in Head Start and public preschool classrooms, leading the assessment team of an IES-funded efficacy study of an integrated science and literacy curriculum for first grade classrooms, and serving as the co-principal investigator of an IES-funded measurement grant, working with colleagues at Erikson Institute to develop an observational tool to measure the quality of math instruction in preschool classrooms.
Other projects focused on workforce supports for individuals working with young children and their families, including the RISE (Researching Implementation Support Experiences) home visiting evaluation conducted in collaboration with the Washington State Department of Early Learning to examine workforce supports in home visiting programs supported by Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) funds. Gaylor has also explored how best to support preschool teachers’ self-efficacy in mathematics to increase their confidence and intentional math instruction in a variety of preschool settings, including school-based preschool programs and Head Start centers.
Gaylor also has expertise in early childhood social-emotional development (e.g., consulting on a guide for program administrators to reduce suspensions and expulsions in early care and education settings) and serving as the principal investigator of a project under an Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant to examine the impact of scaling the Pyramid Model in rural and urban preschool and kindergarten classrooms to reduce behavior challenges and exclusionary discipline practices like suspensions and expulsions.
On the Office of Special Education Programs-funded Model Demonstration Coordination Center for early childhood language intervention project, Gaylor was responsible for developing common measures and synthesizing outcomes for three projects across the country. For First 5 California, she was responsible for consulting with local, county, and state stakeholders to analyze and report on population- and community-level data to inform policy decisions.
Gaylor is the author of several reports and briefs, as well peer-reviewed publications and regularly presents her work at scholarly conferences. She is certified reviewer for the What Works Clearinghouse and has led multiple studies that have met WWC standards. Gaylor earned her PhD in human development from the University of California, Davis and a BS in psychology from the University of Iowa.
Key projects
- Scaling up Pyramid Model Implementation in Preschool and Kindergarten Classrooms (EIR)
- Collaborative Math: Creating Sustainable Excellence in Mathematics for Head Start Programs (NSF)
- Virginia Preschool Initiative – Plus (VPI+) Comprehensive Evaluation (PDG/state)
- Model Demonstration Coordination Center (MDCC) (OSEP)
- Evaluation of the Midwest Expansion of the CPC Education Program (i3)
Recent publications
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Associations of teacher characteristics with preschool suspensions and expulsions: Implications for supports
Preschool children subjected to suspension and expulsion miss valuable educational opportunities and are more likely to experience academic failure and grade retention. These forms of exclusionary discipline are more frequent in preschool settings than in K–12 education classrooms.
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Innovations in Early Mathematics: Final Report
SRI evaluated the impact of teachers’ participation in a 2-year professional development (PD) intervention to improve teachers’ knowledge, attitudes, and instructional practice in math across prekindergarten (preK) to third grade classrooms in the city of Chicago.
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Virginia Preschool Initiative Plus (VPI+) Final Evaluation Report
The Virginia Preschool Initiative Plus was designed to provide 4-year-old children from low-income families with access to high quality prekindergarten programs.
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Who gets what? Describing the non‐supervisory training and supports received by home visiting staff members and its relationship with turnover
The early childhood home visiting field lacks a basic understanding of home visiting program staff members’ receipt of on-the-job training from experts outside of their programs who are not their immediate colleagues or supervisors.
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Chicago’s Pay for Success Program Evaluation: Year 3
For each year of the program, SRI International, the program’s independent evaluator, releases a report of student performance across kindergarten readiness, special education utilization, and third-grade literacy.
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Independent Evaluation of the Midwest CPC Expansion Project: Final Report
SRI conducted an independent evaluation of the Midwest Expansion of the Child-Parent Center (CPC) Program using a quasi-experimental design.