Discipline-based education researchers have a natural laboratory--classrooms, programs, colleges, and universities. Studies that administer treatments to multiple sections, in multiple years, or at multiple institutions are particularly compelling for two reasons: first, the sample sizes increase, and second, the implementation of the treatments…

This edited collection provides a state-of-the art overview of research on willingness to communicate (WTC) in a second and foreign language. In particular, it includes innovative studies seeking to demonstrate the ways in which WTC can be examined within the framework of complex dynamic systems, how the construct is related to self-assessment,…

The purpose of this article is to clarify the discrepancy in the use of "queer" as a sexual identity classification in education survey research. This study extends the work completed by Dugan and Yurman (2011), who empirically demonstrated problems with treating LGB students as a homogenous population through collapsing all respondents…

"Theory and Method in Higher Education Research" contains contemporary contributions to international debates regarding the application and development of theory and methodology in researching higher education. Higher education research is a developing field internationally, which is attracting more and more researchers from a great…

In educational research, characteristics of the learning environment (e.g., social climate, instructional quality, goal orientation) are often assessed via student reports, and their associations with outcome variables such as school achievement or student motivation then tested. However, studying the effects of the learning environment presents a…

This study investigates the relationships of domain-general cognitive abilities and domain-specific verbal and mathematical abilities to students' educational characteristics when two theoretically grounded, but competing structural models are applied. In the standard model, a single latent ability causes interindividual differences in the…

The purpose of the School Improvement Model (SIM) Project is to investigate the links between systematically developed teacher performance evaluation, administrator performance evaluation, staff development interventions, and the quality of education as measured by student achievement results. Following the 4th year of the 5-year study,…

This paper discusses the principles underlying discriminant analysis and constructs a simulated data set to illustrate its methods. Discriminant analysis is a multivariate technique for identifying the best combination of variables to maximally discriminate between groups. Discriminant functions are established on existing groups and used to…

Describes a study of computer science majors conducted at Purdue University to determine what factors predict academic success or lack of it. Results show that strength in mathematical and verbal skills is necessary for success as indicated by SAT scores, minimum number of high school mathematics credits, and class standing. (MBR)

This bibliography provides annotations of 33 major research studies on the school and social factors that impede disadvantaged children's ability to learn and succeed in school. The studies demonstrate that a wide range of educational, familial, and social influences can either put children at risk of educational failure early in their lives or…

The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) is the most recent in a series of longitudinal studies conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics at the United States Department of Education. The NELS:88 began with a baseline assessment of school experiences, with the purpose of relating these experiences to current…

A random sample of 113 members of the American Vocational Education Research Association (AVERA) was surveyed to obtain baseline information regarding AVERA members' perceptions of statistical significance tests. The Psychometrics Group Instrument was used to collect data from participants. Of those surveyed, 67% were male, 93% had earned a…

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between teachers' perceptions of instructional evaluations by principals and their attitudes toward the supervisory conference. It also sought to determine whether teachers' attitudes are affected by six different variables: race, age, sex, years of teaching, level of assignment, and…

This paper is one of a series to guide research linking educational policy and management with student achievement. It specifies the determinants of key paradigm variables and teacher and principal work. The paradigm developed for this type of research is presented in an earlier paper in the series. The constructs of the paradigm are defined,…

Two approaches for conceptualizing and estimating a contextual model for analyzing student achievement are the separate equation approach and the single equation approach. The separate equation method determines the relationship between the individual-level independent variable and the individual-level dependent variable within each group. It then…