Some 3,000 proposals submitted for Research Grants in Education and Small Grants, two of the major topic areas in the 1973 Field Initiated Studies (FIS) program of the National Institute of Education (NIE), are analyzed in this report to identify research features which seemed to receive priority emphasis and to describe some of the methodological…

The small amount of funding provided by the federal government for research on the higher education system and the reasons for this research to be given such a low priority are discussed. A rationale for doing research on higher education and for federal funding of such research is proposed, followed by specific recommendations for documenting the…

Assessing results of grants programs is illustrated with evaluation activities of the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies. Methods considered are ex-ante peer review of proposed work, ex-post peer review of completed work, publications-based methods, and "look-back" methods tracing contributions of past work and…

The site variability issue for Direct Instruction Follow Through sites is examined from a variety of perspectives--meta-analysis of the Abt Associates' data, norm-referenced comparisons, and a longitudinal look at stability of effects. Much of the seemingly unexplained variability found in both the Abt report and the reports by M. Kennedy and E.…

More than two dozen federal agencies in five departments in one way or another sponsor research or melioristic programs that have as their ultimate goal the improvement of a child's life. Text and tables describe the different programs. (Author/MLF)

Rather than automatically presuming explicit conditions exist when designing an evaluation to fit the summative or formative mold, evaluators should think of an evaluation design as fitting between endpoints on an evaluation process continuum. Evaluators can blend techniques from both the formative and summative evaluation, matching actual program…

In third world countries a key to the course of nation building is the modernization of the organizational and administrative infrastructures that drive the development process. The focus of this paper is the ministry of education (MOE), an institution that has found its role changed dramatically since midcentury in most Latin American nations. In…

Preliminary findings of this research effort provide support for the hypothesis that existing databases maintained by federal agencies for administrative or monitoring purposes can serve as useful data sources in special education policy research. The research explored the relationships among a number of state-level special education, fiscal, and…

The Consumer Information Center is a federal program which encourages federal agencies to develop and release consumer information to the public. It also promotes consumer awareness and access to information through the "Consumer Information Catalog" and a mail order distribution operation. Through research, the Center can learn the…

A study was conducted to address the question of what impact the expansion of employment and training programs for youth (such as the Youth Employment Demonstration Projects Act of 1977) is likely to have on employment and unemployment of young people. The method used in the analysis was to specify a model (similar to the Markov model) of the…

Efficient methods of using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to analyze National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data files are discussed. One error in the NAEP SPSS file is discussed, and another error (which may be system-dependent) is mentioned. In addition, purely mathematical methods are used to address the…

Disability research and program evaluation have generally been viewed with suspicion in Indian country because research designs, procedures, instruments, and interpretation and dissemination of outcomes have often ignored potential cultural conflicts. This paper explores a national evaluation in eight tribal communities that established systems of…

This 1984 study (1) estimated the more enduring benefits of a Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) prevocational program for those who completed the program in 1979; and (2) identified the features of the CETA program that completers recalled as having contributed to these benefits. The 18-week CETA prevocational program was offered by…

Passage of the Education Amendments of 1974 added a new section to Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, which required the U.S. Commissioner of Education to undertake specific activities regarding evaluation of the program. Efforts made by the Office of Education to implement this law are described, including the…

Establishment of the federal-state Employment Service system created a need for a standardized occupational language to ensure uniform matching of workers with jobs. The Occupational Analysis Research Program was initiated to gather a broad base of detailed occupational information. Although the organizational structure of all editions of the…