Research
Kenneth Frank received his Ph.D. in measurement, evaluation and statistical analysis from the School of Education at the University of Chicago in 1993. He is MSU Foundation professor of Sociometrics, professor in Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education; and adjunct (by courtesy) in Fisheries and Wildlife and Sociology at Michigan State University. His substantive interests include the study of schools as organizations, social structures of students and teachers and school decision-making, and social capital. His substantive areas are linked to several methodological interests: social network analysis, sensitivity analysis and causal inference (http://konfound-it.com with applications to COVID-19 https://www.konfound-it.org/), and multi-level models. His publications include quantitative methods for representing relations among actors in a social network, robustness indices for sensitivity analysis for causal inferences, and the effects of social capital in schools, natural resource management, and other social contexts. Dr. Frank’s current projects include how beginning teachers’ networks affect their response to the Common Core; how schools respond to increases in core curricular requirements; school governance; teachers’ use of social media https://www.teachersinsocialmedia.com/); implementation of the Carbon-Time science curriculum (http://carbontime.bscs.org/); epistemic network analysis (http://www.epistemicnetwork.org/); social network intervention in natural resources and construction management; complex decision-making in health care; the diffusion of knowledge about climate change.