This Toolkit presents lessons learned from the process of implementing a new system for collecting student-level work-based learning (WBL) data in high school career and technical education (CTE) programs. As part of a study on career academies and WBL, a research team worked closely with a district CTE office and school staff to design and…

Topological data analysis (TDA) is a collection of powerful tools that can quantify shape and structure in data in order to answer questions from the data's domain. This is done by representing some aspect of the structure of the data in a simplified topological signature. In this article, we introduce two of the most commonly used topological…

Armed with this guide's strategies and concrete examples, subject librarians, data services librarians, and scholarly communication librarians will be inspired to roll up their sleeves and get involved with teaching research data management competencies to students and faculty. The usefulness of research data management skills bridges numerous…

The International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2009 studied the ways in which countries prepare their young people to undertake their roles as citizens. ICCS 2009 was based on the premise that preparing students for citizenship roles involves helping them develop relevant knowledge and understanding and form positive attitudes…

Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) provides international comparative data about students' reading achievement after four years of primary schooling, while also measuring trends over time, monitoring curricular implementation, and identifying promising instructional practices. Conducted on a regular 5-year cycle, PIRLS has…

This book is designed to give step-by-step instructions necessary to do most major types of data analysis using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). SPSS is a powerful tool that is capable of conducting nearly any type of data analysis used in the social sciences. This book should enable the reader to do 95% of what the program…

This guide provides an introduction to the use of microcomputers with qualitative data. It is deliberately non-specific and rudimentary in order to be of maximum benefit to the widest possible audience of beginning microcomputer users who wish to analyze their data using software that is not specifically designed for qualitative data analysis. The…

Developed as a hands-on guide for students engaged in educational research, this book provides an introduction to key qualitative and quantitative methods necessary for those commencing research for the first time. The reader is shown how these methods work and how their outcomes may be interpreted. The book includes: (1) A variety of examples and…

Discusses some of the myths surrounding grading on the curve. Provides a simple explanation of such statistical terms as histograms, relative frequency, normal distribution, mean, and standard deviation. Describes how to restructure the curve, including the program listing for a computer program that will assist the teacher. (TW)

Discusses important factors to consider before deciding on hardware or software to use in building qualitative databases. Examines using the computer to store and retrieve text, store and retrieve graphics, analyze text, analyze graphic materials, distribute data stored on one machine to others, allow researchers access to data from remote sites,…

VTLOGANL is a project to enhance and develop new methods and computer software to aid the social science researcher using video tape. This paper describes the latest release of the VTLOGANL program and provides a brief description of its capabilities. VTLOGANL is a BASIC program designed for an MS-DOS computer system. It uses Indexed Sequential…

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) CD-ROM for 1991, 1993, and 1995 contains an Electronic Codebook (ECB) program that allows the user to examine the variables in each of the NHES data sets easily and to create Statistical Analysis system and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (for DOS or Windows) that will generate an extract…

This guidebook is designed for data analysts who are working with computer data files that contain records with incomplete data. It indicates choices the analyst must make and the criteria for making those choices in regard to the following questions: (1) What resources are available for performing the imputation? (2) How big is the data file? (3)…

The expert system computer simulation detailed in this report is designed to investigate patterns of valuing in decision-making about dossiers of performance data used in teacher promotion evaluations. The knowledge base for the simulation consists of 111 questions organized into 117 rules. The questions and linked advice were derived from…

Ways a microcomputer can be used to establish and maintain an evaluation database and types of data management features possible on a microcomputer are described in this report, which contains step-by-step procedures and numerous examples for establishing a database, manipulating data, and designing and printing reports. Following a brief…