Experience

Zhina Shen is the director of research and evaluation at ILC and will serve as the project director. She has expertise in statistical analysis and STEM education teaching and research. She received her Ph.D. in Learning Disabilities & Behavior Disorders from the Department of Special Education at the University of Texas, Austin. She has two Master of Science degrees. One M.S. degree is in Statistics from the Department of Natural Sciences, and the second M.S. degree is in Learning Disabilities and Behavior Disorders from the Department of Special Education at UT, Austin. Dr. Shen has quantitative research expertise in randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental design, meta- analysis, correlational research, and analysis of other secondary data analysis. She has qualitative research experience constructing semi-structured interview guides and conducting interviews and focus group studies. Dr. Shen served as the Principal Investigator of a Texas-funded program that examined the effect of manipulative-based interventions on improving whole number computations for K-12 students with mathematics difficulties. As PI, she led the meta-analysis to detect the impact of manipulative-based interventions for students with challenges learning mathematics.