This guide for district and school leaders shows how to recognize opportunities to embed randomized controlled trials (RCTs) into planned policies or programs. Opportunistic RCTs can generate strong evidence for informing education decisions--with minimal added cost and disruption. The guide also outlines the key steps to conduct RCTs and responds…

This manual is intended for managers of training and institutional development programs. Its objective is to provide clear and practical advice for those who conduct impact evaluations. Impact evaluation is distinguished from other types of evaluation by the area of the program on which it focuses, the assessment of the extent to which a program…

College and university fund raisers are encouraged to test various strategies for direct-mail solicitation by comparing variations of five factors that influence direct mail response: copy; timing; package; offer; and list. Suggestions include forming a hypothesis, testing one variable at a time, choosing test and control groups carefully,…

Research shows that learning communities are an effective way to improve student performance and persistence, but the success of any particular implementation is not guaranteed. Each program should be evaluated with regard to the likelihood that better-prepared students tend to participate. The protocol used for evaluation at Indiana…

A manual on sampling is presented to assist audit and program reviewers, project officers, managers, and program specialists of the U.S. Office of Student Financial Assistance (OSFA). For each of the following types of samples, definitions and examples are provided, along with information on advantages and disadvantages: simple random sampling,…

This codebook is one of a series designed to document the data collection of the 1990-91 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). The series contains the variable names and position numbers for all survey and sampling data. All data have been imputed to compensate for item nonresponse. This volume contains the restricted use codebooks for the SASS…

Under the Drug-Free Schools and Campuses Act, institutions of higher education are required to review the effectiveness of their alcohol and drug prevention programs biannually. This guide offers a method for gathering and interpreting student survey data on alcohol-related problems based on the methodology of the College Alcohol Survey developed…

This notebook contains 21 standards established by the Center for Educational Statistics (CES); CES legislation; and a description of the CES publication and publication review processes. The publication clearance procedures and the external advice and peer review policies are established by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement…