9:41 a.m., Jan. 3, 2011----Doctoral student Megan Pell has spent most of her career working in the field of special education. Currently in her fourth year in the University of Delaware Ph.D. in special education program, Pell is working on expanding her research in the field by studying the transition process between school and the workforce for students with disabilities.

THIS STORY

E-mail

Print

Twitter

"I think it's important in the Ph.D. program that you're developing dispositions about what you want to look at and why you want to look at certain things," said Pell.

Now, she'll have an opportunity to further develop her research skills. The Council for Exceptional Children-Division of Research has selected Pell to participate in the 2010-2011 cohort of "Doctoral Students Scholars in Special Education Research."

Pell is one of 10 doctoral student scholars chosen from across the country through a national competition to participate in an online seminar and discussion series framed around the question, "What makes for excellence in special education research?"

"I think that Megan has many excellent ideas for research in the area of transition for young adults with disabilities and this will be an opportunity for her to share some of those ideas with a larger audience," said Laura Eisenman, associate professor in the School of Education. "I am excited that we have someone from UD who is going to be part of that work. It's great that we're recognized as having a program here that can support young researchers with great potential and launch them in ways that are nationally recognized. "

The seminars in the series will be led by scholars recognized for making outstanding contributions to the special education field, including: Karen Harris of Vanderbilt University, Stephanie Al Otaiba of Florida State University, and Michael Wehmeyer of the University of Kansas.

Through the seminars, students like Pell will gain a better understanding of how research is evaluated in the scholarly community and they'll also have the opportunity to network and form relationships with other researchers.

Pell believes the scholars program will give her additional insights and resources to identify, foster, and conduct strong research related to her scholarly dispositions.

"It's going from the abstract to making it really happen," said Pell. "You start with an idea, an assumption or a hypothesis. But, I'm excited that I'm going to learn the tools to really dig into that, in a way that is useful to practitioners and researchers, and ultimately, for students with disabilities."

Besides the current research for her dissertation, Pell has been very involved with projects tied to the special education community. She has been involved with research and teacher training on School-wide Positive Behavior Supports and has traveled to Japan to study views on self-determination of students with disabilities there.

Pell also coordinated the UD Junior Partner's in Policymaking in 2009, a weeklong program in which high school students with disabilities learn about disability history and policy, the legislative process, and self-determination and advocacy strategies. Additionally, she currently teaches an undergraduate course at UD, EDUC614: Teaching Exceptional Adolescents, for pre-service general education secondary teachers.

Pell will begin participating in the "Doctoral Student Scholars in Special Education Research" series this month. The culminating seminar, dedicated to graduate student development, will be at the Council for Exceptional Children's national conference in Maryland's National Harbor in April.

Article by Cassandra Kramer
Photo courtesy of Megan Pell