The MSP Program's diverse nature suggests an evaluation consisting of a series of substudies. The MSP-PE's main methodologies include a variety of secondary analyses: meta-analyses using the MSPs' own original data; quantitative analyses of the MSP-MIS database; content analyses of the sort used by a recent NAS-NRC committee in reviewing evaluations of mathematics curricula (Confrey and Stohl, 2004); and other secondary and cross-case analyses. Where warranted, the MSP-PE also will design substudies requiring original data collection. Any such data collection will be carefully coordinated with the MSP grantees, to minimize their burden and avoid potential redundancy with other ongoing data collection efforts.
The MSP-PE is led by COSMOS Corporation with Robert K. Yin of COSMOS serving as Principal Investigator (PI) and Jennifer Scherer serving as one of three Co-Principal Investigators. Additional Co-Principal Investigators and their collaborating institutions (including discipline departments and math centers) are Patricia Moyer-Packenham of George Mason University and Kenneth Wong of Brown University. Other collaborating institutions include Vanderbilt University and The McKenzie Group. The latter organization is coordinating Advisory Board activities, assuring the autonomy and integrity of the external peer review work.