Lisa O'Leary, Associate Director for Assessment and Evaluation
lols@mit.edu

Lisa S. O’Leary joined the Teaching & Learning Laboratory staff as an Associate Director of Assessment & Evaluation in September 2007. As part of the TLL team, Ms. O’Leary works with faculty and departments to design qualitative and quantitative studies aimed at assessing and evaluating various on-going educational efforts at MIT.

Prior to joining the TLL staff, Ms. O’Leary worked as a researcher and evaluation specialist in the Office of Institutional Research & Evaluation at Tufts University. During her tenure at that institution, Ms. O’Leary worked as an Assistant Director, Senior Research Analyst & Evaluation Specialist, and Research Analyst within the office, serving as a resource on evaluation design, multivariate statistics, and psychometrics for faculty members, staff committees, and academic and school deans. In her roles at Tufts, Ms. O’Leary provided guidance regarding methodological and statistical approaches to the evaluation of projects, initiatives, and grant proposals, including Tufts’ OpenCourseWare initiative, the Jonathan M. Tisch College Outcomes Evaluation, and Tufts’ Post-Baccalaureate Research Experiences Program (PREP). As a part of these studies, Ms. O’Leary developed comprehensive evaluation plans, including the construction of logic models, various data collection instruments, including on-line surveys and interview protocols, and data analysis schemes.

Ms. O’Leary is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation at Boston College. She is expected to receive her degree in December 2008, with her doctoral research focusing on the connections between undergraduate students’ participation in activities in college and their development of positive attitudes towards civic engagement. Her other current research interests focus on the use of longitudinal growth models and the development of scales to track changes in students’ knowledge, attitudes and skills over time and the role of accountability and the direct assessment of learning outcomes in higher education.

Ms. O’Leary has a B.A. in Sociology from Providence College.