This methodology report provides technical information about the development, design, and conduct of the fifth-grade data collection of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K). It begins with an overview of the ECLS-K study. Subsequent chapters provide information on the development of the instruments, sample…

Parents, policymakers, business leaders, and the general public increasingly recognize the importance of the first few years in the life of a child for promoting healthy physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development. Whether the evidence comes from sophisticated research by brain scientists or the simple observation of the…

Motivation and affect have mostly been studied separately, but both research and practical experience suggest that they are reciprocal features of learning experiences and should be studied together. The present research examines the relationships among cognition, motivation and affect in fifth- and sixth-grade children during mathematics classes…

"Making Middle Grades Work" ("MMGW") is a school improvement design developed by the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) and its member states. "MMGW" is built on research-based instructional practices and policies. The design combines challenging yet attainable goals with accountability that encourages teachers, supports students and results…

This report presents results from a 3-year evaluation of the Title I "Success for All" (SFA) schoolwide program being implemented at four elementary schools in the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District, Alaska. SFA meets the criteria of Title I regulations and has a strong reading component with frequent assessments of student…

This report summarizes tasks undertaken to assess the feasibility of a longitudinal analysis of elementary and secondary schools. The initial objective was to see if it was technically possible to analyze overlap samples of schools from the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) to produce substantive findings. Over the course of the project various…

The history of ICT education in Hungarian public education dates back to the 1970s. In Hungary, as well as in most countries that introduced computing as a compulsory school discipline, a shift is observable from a technology-centred towards a teaching-learning centred approach. In the late 1970s, teacher training programmes and in-service…

This paper reports on the results of a study of English children's performance on a computer mathematics assessment compared with a pencil-and-paper assessment. Two matched samples of children were each assessed on one of two mathematics pencil-and-paper tests and assessed a month later on a cloned computer test. The performance scores were better…

Useful assessment of general education courses is one impotant tool of a successful approach to advising. This article describes two methods for evaluating the effect general education math and English courses are having on students. One procedure involves examining the grade distribution for students enrolled in math and English general education…

This analysis of gender performance differences in a first-level New Zealand university course in computer science is predicated on the model of academic ability proposed by Charles Spearman, the eminent educational psychologist and statistician. The regression model is based on the theoretical constructs of general academic ability and specific…

The State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report is produced annually by the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) to broaden understanding of the context and consequences of multiple decisions made every year in each of these areas. No single report can provide definitive answers to such broad and fundamental questions of public…

This report summarizes the twelfth survey of states by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) at the University of Minnesota. Results are presented for all 50 states and 8 of the 11 unique states. The purpose of this report is to provide a snapshot of the new initiatives, trends, accomplishments, and emerging issues during this…

This document summarizes research to demonstrate the difference that Building Schools for the Future (BSF) schools are making to young people's attitudes towards education and learning, as measured by their levels of engagement and enthusiasm for school. The key research objective was further broken down into a number of research questions: (1)…

The accuracy of the Markov chain Monte Carlo procedure, Gibbs sampling, was considered for estimation of item and ability parameters of the one-parameter logistic model. Four data sets were analyzed to evaluate the Gibbs sampling procedure. Data sets were also analyzed using methods of conditional maximum likelihood, marginal maximum likelihood,…

It is a widely held belief that anchor tests should be miniature versions (i.e., minitests), with respect to content and statistical characteristics of the tests being equated. This paper examines the foundations for this belief. It examines the requirement of statistical representativeness of anchor tests that are content representative. The…