This guide will help researchers design and implement impact studies in education so that the findings are more generalizable to the study's target population. Guidance is provided on key steps that researchers can take, including defining the target population, selecting a sample of schools--and replacement schools, when needed--managing school…

This report describes the design, methods, and results of the 2016/20 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:16/20) conducted by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). It is the second follow-up with a cohort of bachelor's degree recipients originally identified during the 2015-16 National…

IEA's International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) 2018 investigated how well students are prepared for study, work, and life in a digital world. ICILS 2018 measured international differences in students' computer and information literacy (CIL): their ability to use computers to investigate, create, participate, and communicate at…

Survey sampling is fundamentally an applied field. The goal in this book is to put an array of tools at the fingertips of practitioners by explaining approaches long used by survey statisticians, illustrating how existing software can be used to solve survey problems, and developing some specialized software where needed. This book serves at least…

Knowledge derived from practice forms a significant portion of the knowledge base in the education field, yet is not accessible using existing empirical research methods. This paper describes a systematic, rigorous, grounded approach to collecting and analysing practice-based knowledge using the authors' research in teacher leadership as an…

Collecting data from students within classrooms or schools, and collecting data from students on multiple occasions over time, are two common sampling methods used in educational research that often require multilevel modeling (MLM) data analysis techniques to avoid Type-1 errors. The purpose of this article is to clarify the seven major steps…

Districts now have access to a wealth of new information that can help target students with appropriate supports and bring focus and coherence to college readiness efforts. However, the abundance of data has brought its own challenges. Schools and school systems are often overwhelmed with the amount of data available. The capacity of districts to…

This guide is designed to help researchers make sure that their research reports include enough information about study measures so that readers can assess the quality of the study's methods and results. The guide also provides examples of write-ups about measures and suggests resources for learning more about these topics. The guide assumes…

The Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) will establish technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the survey design and implementation processes of PIAAC yield high-quality and internationally comparable data. This document provides a revised version of the technical standards and guidelines originally…

This technical report and user's guide is designed to provide researchers with an overview of the design and implementation of the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), as well as with information on how to access the PISA 2009 data. This information is meant to supplement that presented in Organization for Economic Cooperation…

This study examined the representativeness of a time-sampling observational procedure to evaluate students with behavior disorders by examining error in samples of varying size in comparison to a criterion measure. Analyses of both single subject and multiple subject designs suggested that samples of 16 to 20 observational sessions of eight-minute…

After the terms "qualitative research" and "quantitative research" are defined, this paper considers why it makes sense to integrate these approaches, at least under some circumstances. This discussion necessitates attention to the issue of whether quantitative and qualitative research are inextricably linked to incompatible…

In 1982, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) proposed to implement a new, complex design for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The major features of this design are described in "A New Design for a New Era" (Messick, Beaton, and Lord, 1983). The purpose of this document is to describe the actual implementation of…

This study comparing momentary time sampling against the real time obtained with handheld computers confirmed laboratory findings that short-elementary time sampling estimates percentage time accurately for a wide range of behavior frequencies and durations, and suggested that observers using momentary time sampling in a natural setting are able…

This book is intended to explain principles of qualitative research to potential researchers and to provide them with a set of tools, and guidelines for critical thinking as they carry out such research. The chapters are organized around the elements of the research process which require decisions. Following an introductory chapter, Chapter 2…