In 1881, Donald MacAlister posed a problem in the "Educational Times" that remains relevant today. The problem centers on the statistical evidence for the effectiveness of a treatment based on a comparison between two proportions. A brief historical sketch is followed by a discussion of two default Bayesian solutions, one based on a…

Reports of international large-scale assessments tend to evaluate and compare education system performance based on absolute scores. And policymakers refer to high-performing and economically prosperous education systems to enhance their own systemic features. But socioeconomic differences between systems compromise the plausibility of those…

This technical paper examines some large and unusual movements for data in the 2007 VET (Vocational Education Training) Provider Collection by comparison with 2006. Changes in the patterns of courses undertaken explain most of the divergence between students, enrolments and hours. Appendices include: (1) Derivation of the decomposition; (2) Tables…

In 2006, there were an estimated 181,000 low-income children in the province, with British Columbia (BC) reporting the highest before-tax child poverty rate (21.9%) in Canada (15.8%) for the fifth year in a row. This was the news in the "2008 Child Poverty Report Card" recently released by the First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy…

A common problem in educational research is measuring the degree of relationship or association between two variables. Many investigators habitually use Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient or a transformation of x2. In the past two decades, however, a variety of association measures have been introduced in the statistics literature.…

THE PURPOSES OF THE QUALITY MEASUREMENT PROJECT WERE TO DEVELOP TECHNIQUES FOR ASSESSING THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION PROVIDED BY A SCHOOL SYSTEM AND TO PUT INTO THE HANDS OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS EFFECTIVE PROCEDURES FOR IDENTIFYING AREAS OF WHICH IMPROVEMENT MAY REASONABLY BE EXPECTED, GIVEN THEIR OWN LOCAL CONDITIONS. THIS STUDY SAMPLE CONSISTED OF…

National normative data on the characteristics of students entering colleges as first-time, full-time freshmen in 1969 are presented in this annual report, the fourth in a series developed as part of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program being conducted by the Office of Research of the American Council on Education. The program's major…

During the 2009-2010 school year, Marzano Research Laboratory (MRL) was commissioned by Promethean Ltd. to conduct a second year evaluation study of the effects of Promethean ActivClassroom on student academic achievement. This report describes the findings from the second year study along with aggregate findings from the first and second year…

Points out that 108 studies in the first 25 volumes of AV Communication Review used univariate analysis of variance to test experimental hypotheses, and suggests that researchers include omega-squared values in their reports to permit estimation of the relationship between x and y variables, and correlation data for comparing studies. (MER)

Comparisons were made of attitudes and behavior between single- and multiperson teams in business simulation games. Multiperson games gave rise to higher initial goals for business success, but lower individual feelings of responsibility for outcome. (CMV)

The purpose of this study was to measure the nature and extent of the drug abuse involvement, knowledge, and atitudes of eighth and eleventh grade students in the Coronado Unified School District, Coronado, California. Included is a detailed comparison and evaluation of drug utilization rates; the determination of certain value orientations; and…

Meta-analysis is a collection of systematic techniques for resolving apparent contradictions in research findings. Meta-analysts translate results from different studies to a common metric and statistically explore the relations between study characteristics and findings. Since G. Glass first used the term "meta-analysis" in 1976, it has…

Statistics in European countries show the same trends, for example: social inclusion depends on inclusion in education, training or employment, and life chances are greatly improved if the level of qualifications is high; in all European countries, economic growth still leads to the existence of "pockets" of poverty and economic and…

When gathering and presenting educational statistics, five principles should be considered. (1) The data must be accurate, valid, and complete. Limitations, weaknesses, margins of error, and levels of confidence should be clearly stated. (2) The data must include comparable information, sought in comparable ways, in comparable forms, from…

The first in a series of reports by the Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development, this report demonstrates the positive relationship between reduced class size and pupil achievement. The researchers collected about 80 studies that yielded over 700 comparisons of the achievement of smaller and larger classes. The results showed…