The communities of practice (COP) framework is useful in understanding the effort to expand physics education into professional preparation. This framework prompts physics educators and physics education researchers to consider "what counts as doing physics" that we want to prepare students for and how we can model professional physics…

Qualitative researchers have for some time followed recommendations to analyze both "how" interview data are generated in addition to "what" is discussed. Yet little has been written about the challenges of representing these sorts of analyses. This paper discusses the challenges of presenting methodological analyses of…

This paper intends to construct a survey data quality strategy for institutional researchers in higher education in light of total survey error theory. It starts with describing the characteristics of institutional research and identifying the gaps in literature regarding survey data quality issues in institutional research. Then it is followed by…

To provide an accurate reading of students' and schools' rates of progress, and to provide cues for instruction, assessment at every level should be connected to explicit learning goals and standards. To show how this requirement can be fulfilled, and how research-based assessment can effectively support learning and instruction, this article…

This Teaching and Learning Initiative (TLRI) research project explored ways of teaching literature effectively in multicultural and multilingual classrooms. It involved primary and secondary school teacher-researchers working in partnership with university-based researchers over two years on a series of case studies, within an action research…

This study describes a program designed to improve reading comprehension through the selection, application, and transfer of appropriate reading strategies with both fictional and informational texts. The targeted population consisted of seventh and eighth grade middle school students in a middle-class community in the western suburbs of Chicago,…

An index that measures the degree of comfort a researcher has relative to statistical inference application is proposed. The index is calculated by selecting and weighting components inherent in the conduct of hypothesis tests and confidence intervals, and its values range from zero to one. To organize the components of the index, inference…

This project aimed to identify a variety of literacy-teaching approaches that could be used in secondary content-area classrooms to improve the achievement of a wide range of students. Specifically, the project aimed to investigate: (1) literacy and the extent to which a focus on improved teacher knowledge and practice would lead to increases in…

This report describes a 3-year research project that developed a community-based consumer-researcher training model and subsequently trained an American Indian consumer-researcher team in Eagle Butte, South Dakota. For this project, consumers were defined as American Indians with disabilities, their families, and rehabilitation service providers.…

The impact of NCHEMS (National Center for Higher Education Management Systems) products upon planning and management tasks is examined in this study performed at a sample of 126 institutions. The institutions have used one or more of the following NCHEMS products: Program Classification of Structure (PCS); Resource Requirements Prediction Model…

Prepared for discussion at an Adult Education Research Conference, this paper offers commentary and summative evaluation of eleven doctoral dissertations on the process of determining educational or training needs of specific adult populations. As context for discussion Joe Ellis' definitions of needs--Felt, Real, and Education--are noted along…

This paper reports on the development and implementation of the quality audit, a methodology designed to help school systems examine their capacity for change using the principles of total quality management as a framework for analysis. Total quality management stresses the importance of continuous improvement of organizational processes,…

Introduction: Research has shown that students do not like student presentations, yet a case can be made for them. This study seeks to understand the effects that presentations have on students. Method: Within an action research framework, two repeated-measures studies were completed, one with students undertaking assessed presentations the other…

Executive Order 13096 seeks to improve the educational achievement and academic progress of American Indian and Alaska Native students. Section F of the Order requires the U.S. Department of Education to develop and implement a research agenda for that purpose. Among other things, the research agenda is to include an evaluation of the role of…