Measures of student growth offer a richer understanding of student performance than a moment-in-time test score alone, but measures of student growth are not created equal. In their accountability plans for implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), some states are using a sophisticated analysis of multiple data points that evaluate the…

Numerous actors influence how educational policies play out in practice, but this does not mean that policies themselves are without power. Policies are crafted and enacted in part because they serve as signal and symbol: How a policy is formally codified establishes expectations, exerts norming influence, and catalyzes shifts in how issues are…

The question of how information is used by parents in selecting schools is a central issue in school choice debates, where advocates and opponents frequently intermingle theory (often economic), ideological beliefs, and empirical evidence in constructing arguments about the potential of this reform. We employ a nomination strategy to analyze…

Examines 109 rural community level public sector mental health systems involving 314 administrators. Focuses discussion on whether those who manage/work in rural service delivery systems are interested in/utilize data in their own systems to solve managerial concerns. Includes system, state, and federal level policy recommendations. (NEC)

Discusses the problems associated with using connect time as the basis of user fees for searching numeric online databases, and proposes a methodology for user charge estimation based on query formulation and results. (87 references) (CLB)

Recently, to encourage secondary analysis, the federal government has begun to arrange for public policy data to be documented, archived and released to the public. The purpose of this document is to provide government project officers with guidelines for archiving government-sponsored data files. The guidelines represent a model for…

The first of two reports in this document details the use of a trial teletext service in residential Washington, D.C. during the second half of 1981. It is emphasized that caution must be exercised in interpreting the results since the trial was designed as a pilot with a sample of only 40 households. In addition, there were significant technical…

How implicit assumptions govern the process of policymaking, and how those implicit assumptions are simultaneously consistent with both the political culture of the state and with behaviors that are effective in achieving desired policy outcomes are investigated in this paper. Interview data were gathered from policymakers and analyzed to discover…

Designed to determine to what extent the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) products and services are utilized by certified school personnel, this study found that, on the average, 25.1% of the teachers, librarians, counselors, and administrators in three educational service regions in west central Illinois have used Resources in…

Reports the results of a study of the communication patterns of geophysicists in India, with emphasis on the role of foreign journals. The results are analyzed in terms of information transfer (publication) and information use (citation). (CLB)

This study describes the use and value of the major information products and services provided by the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC). These products and services include technical report distribution on an on-demand basis and through the Automatic Document Distribution (ADD) program; secondary information dissemination through online…

A survey was administered in 1979 to people whose occupations involved them in various aspects of rural mental health services; its purpose was to collect information for the development of approaches for improving the transfer of information in applied research fields. Using a variety of sources to identify potential study members (researchers,…

This research project investigated the information seeking behavior of Syracuse University doctoral students in six disciplines--economics, English, geology, history, philosophy, and physics. Questionnaires distributed to 112 students elicited data from 69 respondents (61.6%) on their educational environment, search strategies, selection of…

This report summarizes the findings of a study that was conducted for the National Forum on Information Literacy (NFIL), a group of representatives from 46 national organizations from business, government, and education which share an interest and concern with information literacy. The purpose of this study was to create a comprehensive definition…

A survey of 152 public officials in three rural southwestern Ohio counties showed that when compared to officials who belonged to no professional associations, local officials who belonged to professional organizations were more likely to recognize when local problems required outside help and more likely to know where to get that help. (JHZ)