Education systems are increasingly creating rich, longitudinal data sets with frequent, and even real-time, data updates of many student measures, including daily attendance, homework submissions, and exam scores. These data sets provide an opportunity for district and school staff members to move beyond an indicators-based approach and instead…

Researchers in geography education have access to a wide range of research methods, spanning the quantitative-qualitative continuum. However, the choice of which methods to employ in one's research has a direct impact on the subsequent quality of the research findings and should therefore be carefully considered. This paper briefly explores the…

This article discusses quantitative research on homeschooling, including the available data, pitfalls of using the data, estimates of the number of homeschooled children, part-time homeschooling, and why families homeschool. I compare research on homeschooling to research on charter schools, voucher programs, and private schools.

This article suggests that the choice by institutional researchers to use qualitative or quantitative research is often dictated by time, money, resources, and staff and not necessarily with an understanding of the underlying philosophical assumptions structuring beliefs about methodology, knowledge, and reality. These underlying assumptions are…

This project examined the use of quantitative statistical models to bridge the gap between commonly available university data and knowledge for decision making. A method using a multivariate statistical model is discussed in the context of academic quality in higher education. A "problem-oriented" data base designed to study quality and…

The classification problem in educational testing is a decision problem. One must assign subjects to one of several available treatments on the basis of test scores, where the success of each treatment is measured by a different criterion. Examples of classification decisions include individualized instruction, counseling, and clinical settings.…

Arguing that sufficient theory exists about the interplay between human information processing, computer systems, and the demands of various tasks to construct useful theories of human-computer interaction, this study presents a structural model of human-computer interaction and reports the results of various statistical analyses of this model.…

This paper describes a quantitative method to investigate the enrollment motives of students, and reports on the application of the method at the University of Utrecht (The Netherlands). The paper discusses environmental, educational/organizational, and image factors influencing a student's choice of a particular university. A quantitative…

Presents a study of metacognitive responses of English school children examining four common metacognitive function measures. Discusses the content of each measure, the search for developmental commonality, and statistical relationships. Concludes that no evidence supported a common metacognitive factor or unified construct, although a common…

Before there can be an understanding of politics, policy, and action in education, there must be an understanding of the value systems of policymakers. Policymakers, in their talk, in their choices of symbols and metaphors, in their choices of strategies for dealing with conflict, reveal their own needs, their role orientations, their group…

Describes study designed to determine whether seventh-grade students classified as field dependent or independent would respond to computer assisted instructional options in different ways. Chi-square analysis reveals both groups showed similar pattern options use except in the case of additional expository examples where field-dependent students…

This essay reviews major trends in methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of organizations since the mid-sixties and espouses the political analysis of organizations, a position representing a middle ground between comparative structuralism and the loosely coupled systems approach. This position emphasizes micropolitics as well as…

A procedure for developing a costing model is described. Limitations of a cost analysis are also reviewed, with attention to the problems of handling joint products, obtaining accurate faculty effort data, measuring educational outputs, and calculating marginal costs. A researcher charged with developing a costing model is faced with the task of…

This study applied brain lateralization research and a model of generative teaching and learning to economic education. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of verbal-only, imagery-only, and integrated (verbal-to-imaginal) strategies on fifth graders' proclivity to use economic reasoning (i.e. cost-benefit analysis) in personal…

In a comparative analysis of values in state education policy, this paper demonstrates the need for a multifaceted methodology to understand the complexity that characterizes state sociopolitical systems. The paper refers to a study of education policy values among six states in its analysis. Identifying values and their influence form the central…