LMalone

Lizabeth Malone

Principal Researcher
Expertise
  • Early childhood development
  • Study design
  • Measurement development
  • Data collection
  • Descriptive analysis and reporting
Focus Areas
  • Quality Improvement
  • Early Childhood
  • Child Development
  • Quality Measurement
  • Human Services
About Lizabeth

Lizabeth Malone is a principal researcher with extensive experience studying young children in the context of early childhood programs.

Since joining Mathematica in 2008, Malone has contributed to multiple studies assessing children and families. She has expertise in early childhood assessment and quality measurement of early care and education settings, directing the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey 2014-2018 (FACES), a nationally representative study of Head Start programs, classrooms, children and families. She also directs the first nationally representative study of Region XI American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start programs in tribal communities (AI/AN FACES) and oversees a project exploring design options for early childhood needs assessments more broadly in tribal communities. For many studies she has managed the data collection design, including child and student assessments, measure selection, instrument development, staff training, and data collection management. She also helped develop a new child care observation tool, Quality of Caregiver-Child Interactions for Infants and Toddlers.

Malone holds a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Columbia University’s Teachers College. Her previous positions include research analyst for the American Institutes for Research and graduate research fellow at the national Center for Children and Families, Teachers College. She is a reviewer for Early Childhood Research Quarterly and a member of the Society for Research in Child Development.

Key Projects
  • Early Care and Education Leadership Study (ExCELS)

    The Early Care and Education Leadership Study seeks to fill definitional and measurement gaps in order to help the early childhood field understand how effective leaders can improve quality experiences for children in early care and education settings.

  • Head Start: The Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES)

    Mathematica conducted the 2006 and 2009 FACES studies, and, for the most recent studies (2014-2018 and 2019), redesigned FACES to provide key data more rapidly and with greater frequency and to help researchers examine more complex issues and topics in greater detail with more efficiency.