The American Educational Research Association and the National Academy of Education announced plans today to conduct the first national study ever of doctoral programs in education research.

“In a field as large and robust as education research that produces approximately 1,800 doctorates each year, there has been no prior comprehensive assessment of doctorate programs,” the two organizations said in a news release.

Their study, they said, will examine doctoral programs in 16 major fields of educational research, including mathematics and science education, teacher education, curriculum and instruction, educational psychology, and higher education. More than 900 programs at 120 universities will be reviewed.

The groups said the study would be financed with a three-year National Science Foundation grant totaling nearly $2-million and would be similar to an examination of research doctorate programs in the arts and sciences that’s being conducted by the National Research Council.

Mathematica Policy Research Inc. will collect data for the study, which will begin with surveys of programs, faculty members, and students in the 2009-10 academic year. —Peter Schmidt