The IEA's International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) investigates the ways in which young people are prepared to undertake their roles as citizens in a range of countries in the second decade of the 21st century. ICCS 2016 is the second cycle of a study initiated in 2009. The ICCS 2016 user guide describes the content and format of…

This document is a companion guide to "A Descriptive Analysis of the Principal Workforce in Florida Schools" (Folsom, Osborne-Lampkin, & Herrington, in press). It describes the methods used to extract information from the Florida Department of Education database in order to conduct a descriptive analysis of the demographic…

This document provides an overview of the critical role of fiscal data in state Part C systems. This information is intended to help state Part C lead agency staff better understand strategic fiscal policy questions, the fiscal data elements needed to address those questions, and the benefits of using these data. Fiscal data provide powerful…

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…

TIMSS measures trends in mathematics and science achievement at the fourth and eighth grades in participating countries around the world, while also monitoring curricular implementation and identifying promising instructional practices. Conducted on a regular 4-year cycle, TIMSS has assessed mathematics and science in 1995, 1999, 2003, 2007, and…

The Teacher Education Study in Mathematics or TEDS-M is a study conducted under the aegis of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). The lead research center for the study is the International Study Center at Michigan State University (ISC/MSU). The ISC/MSU worked from 2006 to 2011 with the International…

Discusses methods for designing search strategies for maximum recall, including minimizing the number of concepts intersected, isolating key subtopics, adapting the strategy to the database, and minimizing problems with search words and codes. (Author/RAA)

Describes a menu-driven software system for searching CD-ROM databases that also unobtrusively gathers data on CD-ROM usage. The discussion covers the steps involved in creating a log file using DOS, tips for capturing user status, strategies for salvaging incomplete data, and types of CD-ROM usage analysis supported by these data. (three…

Provides guidelines for building a consistent and reliable database of expenditures within an institution of higher education. Stresses the importance of involving key constituencies, including both data providers and data users, in decisions about building the data elements for such a database and the resulting campus cost studies. (DB)

The information needed for informed decision making and planning by institutions of higher education can be made available through the establishment of carefully constructed databases. This handbook outlines the characteristics of databases, the needs databases meet, the key factors around which they must be organized, the advantages they offer,…

Two school districts in Washington State are seeing fundamental shifts in the learning process by using technology as a tool to support data-centric instruction. An effective student-assessment strategy includes comprehensive information about student progress, analysis of assessment information so specific instructional strategies can be…

This data file user's manual documents the procedures used to collect and process high school transcripts for a large sample of the younger cohort (1980 sophomores) in the High School and Beyond survey. The manual provides the user with the technical assistance needed to use the computer file and also discusses the following: (1) sample design for…

This guide provides some basic statistical techniques that may be used in writing grant proposals, analyzing reports, and evaluating programs. Examples focus on rural Pennsylvania. The first section, Understanding Data, discusses definitions, codes, and data limitations. Definitions of Census Bureau geographic, demographic, housing, and…

Presents six steps of data warehouse development that result in valuable, long-term reporting solutions, discussing how to choose the right reporting vehicle. The six steps are: defining one's needs; mapping the source for each element; extracting the data; cleaning and verifying the data; moving the data into a relational database; and developing…