All around us are examples of people and organizations with good information making bad decisions. Consider the case of Blockbuster. Less than a decade ago, Blockbuster had 8,000 stores in 17 countries and millions of customers. It was awash in data, including customer surveys that said people disliked going to video stores and hated late fees.…

This study examined the effect of various district and site level conditions that influence the frequency of teacher data-driven decision-making behaviors. This study is motivated by four research questions: 1) Among various kinds of data available to teachers and principals in making data-driven decisions: a. What is the relative level of…

The purpose of this study was to investigate non-mandated data-driven decision making in private/religious schools. The school culture support of data use, teacher use of data, leader facilitation of using data, and the availability of data were investigated in three schools. A quantitative survey research design was used to explore the research…

Planning means knowing what you wish to do, developing a program to do it, and anticipating the context in which you will have to act. The role of the planning official is to point out options and consequences, not to take responsibility for any policy or pattern of decision. (Author/WM)

Describes the information environment of managers by presenting a model and by reviewing pertinent literature. Structural components of the model include general managerial behaviors, management roles, managerial activities, decision making, problem dimensions, and characteristics of the person and of the organization. (Contains 192 references.)…

Data from interviews with elementary school principals are examined for insights into the impact of administrative style on evaluation utilization. Characteristics of 23 principals' administrative styles are classified as being either "compliance" (CO) or "non-compliance" (NCO) oriented. CO principals are characterized by the following: (1)…

In order to assess the role that research plays in educational decision making and to evaluate the ways in which administrators learn about the educational practices which find their way into schools, a four-page questionnaire was sent to the superintendents of 1000 school districts throughout the United States. Superintendents were asked to…

Conflicts in school closures may be minimized by: (1) not seeking consensus; (2) recognizing the limits of leadership; (3) adopting bargaining strategies; (4) making differential decrements less clearly differentiated; and (5) matching a decrement with an increment. (Author/MJL)

This monograph focuses on educational evaluation and how it occurs within a specific setting--school districts' central administrative offices--examining the relationships between evaluation activities and district organizational features that impinge upon such activities. The various chapter authors worked with the Center for the Study of…

Emphasizing the importance of information in effective planning and decision making, this document reviews the background on data in education both before and after 1976, with particular emphasis on the Florida Educational Accountability Act and its influence on: (1) comprehensive planning; (2) student assessment; (3) management information…

This paper argues for a more robust and encompassing understanding of the roles and functions of institutional research in higher education institutions in the context of fundamental shifts in the way decisions are being made in colleges and universities. In particular institutional researchers can no longer simply collect, analyze and disseminate…

This ethnographic study of 16 Chicago school principals explores the principal's effect on students and teachers within the school; on parents and laymen in the community; on their superiors in the administrative hierarchy; and on themselves as career-oriented professionals. A brief literature review relates studies examining the principalship of…

While rapid shifts in the composition of student populations and increased governmental demands for accountability have underscored the importance of institutional research (IR) in community college management, most adminstrative literature still conceptualizes IR as a cybernetic, neutral, data collection function initiated in response to the…

A planning and evaluation model for management information systems (MIS) at the institutional or system level in higher education is presented. The procedure provides an analytical approach for assessing the effectiveness of an existing information system utilizing a variation of the Business Systems Planning methodology developed by the IBM…

The study summarizes discussions and conclusions of the Regional Workshop on Monitoring and Evaluation of Rural Development Projects in East Africa (Nairobi, Kenya, April 1979), whose purpose was to share lessons learned from field experiences in managing information for rural development. An initial section summarizes information in papers…