This guide provides experienced education researchers with suggestions for conducting high-quality effectiveness studies to overcome research challenges common to rural settings. The guide addresses four factors that researchers must consider when conducting educational effectiveness research in rural settings: (1) study design, (2) recruitment of…

This book is intended to give teacher education students and practicing teachers an introduction to research methods and does so by following the procedures and results of a recent study. Chapter 1 discusses the research problem and the procedures for setting up a research design. Chapter 2 discusses the major stages of field work. Chapter 3…

This book provides a uniquely accessible introduction to multilevel modeling, a powerful tool for analyzing relationships between an individual level dependent variable, such as student reading achievement, and individual-level and contextual explanatory factors, such as gender and neighborhood quality. Helping readers build on the statistical…

Conceptualizes the process of conducting integrative research reviews as a data-gathering, empirically based procedure and offers guidelines for conducting such reviews. Introduces specific suggestions that were heretofore unaddressed. Maintains that efforts to standardize integrative review process and to ensure its scientific rigor in counselor…

The National Food and Agriculture Council of the Philippines regularly requires rapid feedback data for analysis, which will assist in monitoring programs to improve and increase the production of selected crops by small scale farmers. Since many other development programs in various subject matter areas also require similar statistical…

This workbook, which accompanies An Evaluation Primer (TM 007 500) consists of 19 practical exercises for applying evaluation skills to hypothetical educational programs. Each chapter corresponds to a chapter in the primer, with answers keyed accordingly. Intended to provide an introduction to evaluation, the exercises include: identifying the…

Designed as a comprehensive guide to the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience (NLS), this handbook is intended for two major categories of readers. For persons who wish to ascertain whether their research interests can be served by the NLS data, the handbook can provide the detailed description of the objectives of the surveys,…

Designed for coordinators of student volunteer programs (experiential learning through community service), this manual provides information on some of the basic research approaches and tools which can be used to analyze a program's activities and effectiveness. The major areas discussed include the following: the reasons for and resources…

This manual contains information for conducting regular student surveys at Kalamazoo Valley Community College. Questionnaires, designed for new, returning, and former student populations, are presented together with the methods by which the instruments should be administered. Guidelines for data analysis and report writing are also outlined. The…

This paper defines a conceptual model for institutional research in the community college and identifies sources of information, programs, and services that provide data necessary for implementation of the model. The model contains four specific subsystems: goal setting, program development, program review, and cost effectiveness. Each subsystem…

Work on the development of the intensive time-series design was initiated because of the dissatisfaction with existing research designs. This dissatisfaction resulted from the paucity of data obtained from designs such as the pre-post and randomized posttest-only designs. All have the common characteristic of yielding data from only one or two…

This guide was designed for trainers presenting inservice workshops for program evaluators, teachers, principals, curriculum specialists, and others responsible for school programs. It is keyed to a companion volume, the Program Evaluator's Guide (ED l42 563), the primary source for workshop participants. Developed under the California Evaluation…

Because of the pragmatic need of school districts to respond to questions posed by those interested in their efforts to implement career education and the equally practical need to further its definition, there exists a demand to assess the results of efforts to implement the concept. The main body of this monograph provides an operational…

In order to obtain accurate and factual data, a survey instrument must be well constructed and a survey planned carefully and conducted under strict conditions. Of importance in planning a survey is a determination of previous and on-going research through an extensive literature review. In designing the survey, the researcher should aim at…

Produced as part of the Targeted Outcomes Field Development Project, this handbook provides basic guidelines that can be used by community colleges for organizing and conducting community impact studies. An introductory chapter touches on the broad range of economic, educational, social, and technological impacts which community colleges have upon…