The application of educational research to practice remains an issue of concern, and yet there has been relatively little consideration of this in relation to reviews of research. While the professional user review hitherto represents the most relevant approach, this involves users applying the findings of an earlier review rather than carrying…

Fueled by a culture fascinated by numbers and increased accountability, data-driven instruction has become a mighty force as it joins with the tools of technology to handle the mammoth task of gathering, sorting, analyzing, and synthesizing data. Success stories from districts all over the country attest to the positive results of implementing…

Addresses issues of students' understandings of representative values of data--how representative values should be introduced, and what role student understanding of representative values plays in their ability to analyze sets of data. Highlights the importance of teacher support of student development of conceptual understandings of multiple…

Discusses the importance of the process of making decisions based on data referred to as data-driven decision making, or D3M. Presents guidelines for teachers to consider when implementing a data-driven decision making process. (ASK)

Introduces an activity designed to develop statistical concepts such as the distribution for a set of data, various interpretations of the mean for a set of data, the limitation of the mean for distinguishing distributions, variation in data, variation in data from the mean, and the MAD as a measure of variation in data from the mean. (ASK)

Describes research using a pedagogic strategy developed during an exploratory work called Active Graphing in which access to spreadsheets allows graphs to be used as analytic tools within practical experiments. Identifies aspects of student interaction with the experiment itself, the data collected and the graphs, and traces the emergence of…

Without using data to inform their actions at every step of the way, teachers and administrators will probably not reach their goals for school improvement. In this article, the authors describe a CRESST initiative that helps educators develop the skills to collect, analyze, and be guided by data. Five steps to effective date use are described in…

Computer-based management systems offer an efficient means of recording, categorizing, and summarizing data on student discipline. This article furnishes basic information on developing student files, entering data, and generating meaningful reports, such as individual student profiles, date and period frequency, student referral distribution, and…

Many students have difficulties in interpreting position versus time graphs. Presents an activity involving calculator-based motion labs that allows students to bring these graphs to life by turning their own motion into a graph that can be analyzed, investigated, and interpreted in terms of how they actually moved. (ASK)

Presents an activity using national achievement data to involve students in a project on data collection and statistics while learning about their attitudes toward and beliefs about mathematics. This activity presents a good opportunity to talk about various interpretations of data and allows students to examine and discuss their attitudes about…

Presents different real-world mathematics activities on data display and data analysis with pie charts from different time periods. (ASK)

The widespread use of comparative data can lead to problems on a campus unless the data are systematically incorporated in the institutional planning cycle. A model has been developed to alleviate a number of problems and increase the power of comparison as a management tool. (MSE)

The statistical properties of curriculum-based time-series data were investigated for 67 learning disabled students (grades 1-7). Results suggest that reading growth over time may be described by a negatively accelerated curve and that the statistical characteristics of time-series data are not necessarily independent in naturally occurring data.…

Presents a classroom technique for demonstrating the post-factum interpretation problem. Describes the various ways that students interpreted data concerning the percentage of men and women in traditionally female occupations. Discusses the various uses of this technique in both introductory and research classes. (KO)

Describes a five-number summary which is a display of the minimum value, lower quartile, median, upper quartile, and maximum value. Indicates how to draw box plots as graphical representations of a five-number summary. (YP)