This article reflects on the focus group as a research technique used in an analysis of the relationship between learning spaces and pedagogy, developed as part of the assessment of the secondary school modernisation programme in Portugal. The research proposes a methodological innovation in the use of focus group, by developing focus groups…

Including all children in large-scale educational studies is a pressing concern. Omitting certain types of children from studies can lead to skewed findings that promote inaccuracies about learning levels or educational quality. Increasingly, assessments are a method for investigating the quality of education systems, but national assessments are…

This chapter provides examples of innovative methods and tools to collect, analyze, and report both quantitative and qualitative data in student affairs assessment.

This study aims to carry out a content analysis determining the general framework of studies related to curriculum. For this purpose, 154 curriculum-related studies carried out in Turkey between 2000 and 2014 were examined in terms of year, sample, method, data collection technique, purpose, and result. The most studies related to curriculum were…

For more than a decade, hundreds of thousands of India's young adults have volunteered to collect data for an annual household education related survey. The survey is called the Annual Status of Education Report or ASER, for short. The ASER survey is a unique methodology of citizen-led assessments. The purpose of this article is to describe and…

IES is the primary research, evaluation, and statistics arm of the U.S. Department of Education. Established through the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (ESRA), the Institute's mission is to expand fundamental knowledge and understanding of education and to provide education leaders and practitioners, parents and students, researchers, and…

This appendix presents the data collection instruments used for the "National Evaluation of Title III Implementation: Report on State and Local Implementation" study. The purpose of this study is not to monitor Title III implementation, but to describe the implementation of Title III in states and school districts across the country. The…

Serious Educational Games (SEGs) have been a topic of increased popularity within the educational realm since the early millennia. SEGs are generalized form of Serious Games to mean games for purposes other than entertainment but, that also specifically include training, educational purpose and pedagogy within their design. This rise in popularity…

Federal policymakers have interest in three specific areas of postsecondary career and technical education (CTE): associate degrees and certificates awarded in CTE, skills and training obtained through noncredit courses, and industry-recognized certifications. Research and data are readily available on students earning degrees and certificates in…

This report uses NAEP background data to track time and learning since the mid-1990s in three areas: student absenteeism; classroom instructional time in mathematics, reading, music and the visual arts; and homework time expected by teachers. Key report findings are: (1) Students with higher rates of "monthly absenteeism" score…

This article proposes working criteria for guiding and judging the validity of performance-related qualitative work based on Conquergood's dialogical performance and Madison's performance of possibilities. A series of criteria is proposed considering three performance-based stages that pursue new meanings for performance in/as qualitative inquiry:…

Most assessment arguments are about measurement. When is it better to use direct versus indirect measures of student learning? Is one standardized test of critical thinking better than another? Is applying rubrics to student work better than using standardized tests? How valid are self-reported measures of learning? Although these arguments are…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how the assessment systems of teacher preparation programs have changed since the new NCATE Standards were implemented in 2004, what methods of data collections are being used, and to measure coordinators' perceptions of the assessment systems. An electronic survey was developed by the researcher based…

This document reports the activities of the Southeastern Teacher Corps Network's May 1979 conference on the validation of programs and the dissemination of information. Concerns of the meeting were: the establishment of procedures for program validation processes, the increased awareness of naturalistic data-gathering techniques for educational…

Addresses the need to include all available data (physical, environmental, language, cognitive, affective, and educational correlates of reading) to evaluate students' reading strengths and weaknesses. Argues that this holistic approach makes the assessment of reading skills efficient and avoids test replication. (RS)