The book provides a grounded, narrative exploration of contemporary qualitative PhD research in the fields of language education and applied linguistics. The chapters are authored by current and former PhD candidates studying in New Zealand, with commentaries from international experts in the field. The book contains ten chapters in addition to…

This case study explains how to gather web metrics to measure the size, investment, and popularity of K-12 school system and higher education websites. This case study will first explain and define web metrics in detail, such as keywords, traffic, search engine optimization, and other terminology crucial for educational researchers to understand…

Researcher-practitioner partnerships have gained increasing prominence within education in recent years, yet scholarship on partnerships and tools to guide partnerships' work remain in their infancy. Drawing on our own work in a partnership as well as analysis of abstracts for the 41 partnerships funded by the Institute of Education Sciences and…

This study uses Monte Carlo simulations to demonstrate that regression-discontinuity designs arrive at biased estimates when attributes related to outcomes predict heaping in the running variable. After showing that our usual diagnostics are poorly suited to identifying this type of problem, we provide alternatives. We also demonstrate how the…

Assessment research is at its best when it packages research results and data so that they can be digested by multiple audiences. Too many assessment researchers spend all their efforts planning and executing the research project with little attention to closing the loop at the end. If assessment findings are not communicated effectively, the…

The 2004/06 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:04/06), conducted for the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), collected information about the education and employment experiences of students in the two years following their first enrollment in postsecondary education. The primary…

Focuses on ethical issues that can arise in the collection and analysis of data in evaluations. Addresses four issues: (1) the application of cost-benefit thinking to judgments about research ethics, (2) the quality of research design, (3) the need to explore the data, and (4) the censoring of data. (Author/SLD)

Some of the requirements and consequences of rigorous and valid educational evaluation research are explored in terms of problems in achieving two types of external validity, population and ecological. The former refers to the generalizability of inferences to subjects not included in a study, while the latter is concerned with the…

This paper is concerned with the effects of test settings on the evaluation process. (Author)

Five papers published in a special edition of Human Factors, August 1973 are examined in an attempt to explain and illustrate the characteristics and applications of central-composite designs in the context of response-surface methodology (RSM). A detailed analysis is provided to show that the experimental papers (1) fail to illustrate the most…

In order to assess the methodological merit of the published research in educational administration based on surveys, the authors analyzed data from a random sample of 24 survey studies published in the "Education Administration Quarterly" and the "Journal of Educational Administration." Each article was evaluated according to…

The necessary handbooks for use of the Student Information System (SIS), developed and tested by the Western Nevada Regional Education Center under a 1968-71 Title III (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) grant, are presented in this volume. As noted, the purpose of the SIS is to supply data and information to persons or organizations who make…

Among the functions of a college of education are engaging in basic research in education and helping the college and individual faculty members provide research for the clientele that the college serves. A formal structure for these tasks is required by large universities. At Mississippi State University (MSU), the Bureau of Research and…

Originally funded under the Vocational Education Act of 1963 and subsequently under Part C of the 1968 Amendments, the Maryland Research Coordinating Unit (RCU) started operation in January 1969 by recruiting a staff and securing the necessary equipment. Once these needs were satisfied the major activities of the staff evolved around (1) state…

A one-week VTAE (Vocational, Technical, and Adult Education) Researcher Workshop was designed to increase the research competencies of Wisconsin VTAE staff members working with research and evaluation projects through a hands-on approach. Based on a needs assessment conducted with the participants, the agenda included sessions on various aspects…