A jack knife is a pocket knife that is put to many tasks, because it's ready to hand. Often there could be a better tool for the job, such as a screwdriver, a scraper, or a can-opener, but these are not usually pocket items. In statistical terms, the expression implies making do with what's available. Another simile, of an extreme situation, is…

This is one of a series of eight short monographs intended to aid practicing educators in planning and conducting accountability programs in schools. This booklet discusses how to determine a sampling method that is appropriate to the objectives of a particular research or evaluation effort. Short sections focus in turn on why and when to sample,…

This report presents considerations for sample design and estimation procedures for the Health Examination Survey, one of the major survey programs employed by the National Center for Health Statistics. The survey collects data which provide national estimates and distributions of various health characteristics related to the growth and…

Purpose: Residential care/assisted living describes diverse facilities providing non-nursing home care to a heterogeneous group of primarily elderly residents. This article derives typologies of assisted living based on theoretically and practically grounded evidence. Design and Methods: We obtained data from the Collaborative Studies of Long-Term…

Three conceptual issues form the basis for coping with technical problems of gathering data on literacy: (1) the definition of literacy; (2) choice of criteria that can be used in properly assessing and measuring literacy; and (3) conflict between the importance and necessity of literacy assessment and the difficulty of fulfilling the prerequisite…

The purpose of this handbook is to document a procedure for obtaining information about the interest of people for additional job training. (The procedure will result in a set of tables providing information on interest in job training for use in planning educational programs. It is designed to be flexible enough for use in areas as small as…

The role of survey data in assessing teacher supply, demand, and shortage is illustrated through a description of the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) of the National Center for Education Statistics. This survey exemplifies a method that involves: (1) a sample survey; (2) representative surveys; (3) cross-sectional surveys; and (4) comprehensive…

The proposed research design, to be actualized beginning in 1969, was evolved to determine the nature and prevalence of mental retardation in Canada and to relate them to other variables. Issues raised concerning both nature and prevalence were reviewed as were surveys in seven different geographic areas. A pilot study conducted in two small…

A framework is described for preparing process profiles of two different surveys conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES): the Recent College Graduates Survey and the Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS) Fall Enrollment Survey. The process profile examines the adequacy of the entire survey process, using…

A new Joint Comprehensive Evaluation System for the assessment of 15 different federal programs has been developed by the U.S. Office of Education. In this system these diverse program services will be thought of as resources available to meet the needs of critical target groups. Using this approach, a set of nine crucial questions that need to be…

The Joint Federal/State Task Force on Evaluation (the Belmont Group) is currently developing a Joint Comprehensive Evaluation System (JCES) for the federally funded programs under the federal acts listed above. It is planned that JCES will replace the multiplicity of evaluation systems (and paper work) under the separate existing programs. This…