Erika Gaylor

Principal Senior Researcher and Early learning director, 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 high-quality instruction and environments, developmental assessments, early literacy and STEM, including computational thinking, social-emotional competence and executive functioning. In her 20 years at SRI, Gaylor has had considerable experience conducting qualitative and quantitative research, including designing research studies; recruiting and coordinating research sites; collecting survey, interview, and observational data; training and supervising research teams; managing databases; coding, analyzing, and interpreting data; and writing articles and reports for both academic and nonacademic audiences. Gaylor has led the data collection efforts on 10 large-scale evaluations, including classroom observations, direct assessments, online surveys, focus groups with families and teachers, and teacher/provider interviews in hundreds of programs and school districts across the nation. Gaylor has served as an independent evaluator for five Investing in Innovation (i3)/EIR projects, and all evaluation studies were designed to meet WWC standards with or without reservations.

Gaylor has collaborated with colleagues and administrators from 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 4-year comprehensive evaluation of the Preschool Development Grant in the Commonwealth of Virginia. More recently, Gaylor has worked to examine the impact on teachers and students when interventions are scaled across a district or state. She is leading the evaluation of an Early Math Toolkit efficacy study to examine the impacts on teachers’ use of evidence-based math teaching practices and young children’s math knowledge and abilities. Gaylor is also serving as independent evaluator of an EIR-funded effectiveness study of the Pyramid Model’s tiered social-emotional learning classroom intervention and coaching on PreK and Kindergarten classrooms in 4 states and 20 school districts around the country.

Gaylor is the author of several reports, briefs, and peer-reviewed publications, regularly presents her work at scholarly conferences, and is a WWC-certified reviewer of research 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)
• Innovations in Early Mathematics: PreK to 3rd Grade (i3)
• Virginia Preschool Initiative – Plus (VPI+) Comprehensive Evaluation (PDG/state)
• Evaluation of the Midwest Expansion of the CPC Education Program (i3)
• Ready to Learn Initiative (CPB/PBS)

Selected publications

• Scaling up Pyramid Model implementation in preschool and kindergarten classrooms: Evaluation report
• How educators and caregivers can create supportive conditions for success in preK-12 mathematics [Infographic]
• Supporting science learning and literacy development together: Initial results from a curriculum study in 1st grade classrooms
• Evaluation of kindergarten readiness in nine Child-Parent Centers: Report for 2016-17
• Toddler naps in child care: Associations with demographics and developmental outcomes. Sleep Health, 2(1), 25-29
• Early childhood language interventions: An illustration of the Model Demonstration Process – Project findings in brief
• Illinois Preschool for All (PFA) evaluation. PFA child outcomes