This article reviews the origins and use of the terms quasi-experiment and natural experiment. It demonstrates how the terms conflate whether variation in the independent variable of interest falls short of random with whether researchers find, rather than intervene to create, that variation. Using the lens of assignment--the process driving…

This chapter describes evidence-based predictors and practices of postschool success for students with disabilities. Examples for implementation and implications for adult education practitioners as they design instruction and programming for individuals with disabilities are provided.

This paper aims to translate for practitioners the principles and methods for evaluating screening measures in education, including benchmark goals and cut points, from our technical manuscript "Evaluation of Diagnostic Systems: The Selection of Students at Risk of Academic Difficulties" (this issue). We offer a brief description of…

This "Practitioner's Guide to Growth Models," commissioned by the Technical Issues in Large-Scale Assessment (TILSA) and Accountability Systems & Reporting (ASR), collaboratives of the "Council of Chief State School Officers," describes different ways to calculate student academic growth and to make judgments about the…

Most efforts to understand and support self-determination have dealt solely with adolescents and adults, sometimes overlooking and excluding the foundations in early childhood that are required for successful emergence of self-determination. The purpose of this article is to share what is known about early self-determination and to suggest how…

The purpose of this brief is to provide information to state, district, and school personnel seeking support to determine whether their students are on a path to postsecondary success. The College and Career Readiness and Success Center (CCRS Center) has received technical assistance requests from a number of states regarding factors that predict…

We discuss the fruits of educational neuroscience research from our laboratory and show how the typical maturational timing milestones in bilingual language acquisition provide educators with a tool for differentiating a bilingual child experiencing language and reading delay versus deviance. Further, early schooling in two languages…

General education classrooms provide a common milieu for understanding and appropriating results of classroom research projects, which are typically viewed as having little application outside their original contexts. Here, results of an investigation into the "sophomore slump," where grades and class attendance rates typically suffer, are…

Presents a classroom demonstration illustrating the connection between spread and Pearson's r. Discusses different factors that may result in an increase, decrease, or no change in r. Describes an exercise using decks of playing cards to generate hypothetical data on variables of intelligence quotient (IQ) and grade point average (GPA). (DK)

Because mainstreaming programs can be stressful for teachers, parents, and students, school counsellors can help in the integration of disabled children into regular classrooms. Suggestions for the successful integration of these children are given. (Author/BL)

A model using four categories of college applicants (enrollment deposit paid, deposit not yet paid, applicants not yet admitted, and those who have not yet applied) that allows forecasting of freshman enrollment from any point in the admission process and simulates the effects of trends and strategies on enrollment is outlined. (MSE)

Discusses research related to identifying early predictors of school success or intelligence. Reports on a study that suggested correlations exist between how babies process information (visual attentiveness) in the first six months of life and the child's performance on intelligence tests in school. (ML)

Described is an activity designed to make the concepts of experimentation, independent variables, and dependent variables easy to understand by using observable characteristics of several rods to illustrate these concepts. (DS)

Describes how the State University of New York, using large databases and regression techniques, has developed several coordinated, comprehensive efforts to evaluate and project current and future enrollments. One requires decomposition of the student population into mutually exclusive subgroups. The other, superior, approach uses logistic…

Provides an abridgement of one section of the National Commission for Environmental Education's second report that focuses on predictors and correlates of environmental action. Summarizes research findings on variables that are associated with responsible environmental behavior. Also presents the major conclusions derived from the investigated…