Suggests that current techniques for assessing school effectiveness are based on narrow concepts of effectiveness; hide inconsistencies in findings across types of students, grades, or subjects; and do not reflect curricula. Emphasizes that school improvement plans should be based on classroom/school-centered research rather than on comparisons of…

Interactive Research and Development on Teaching (IR&DT) was initially proposed as an alternative to linear educational research and development strategies that often resulted in irrelevant, uninterpretable, time consuming research that did not actively involve teachers. This paper reports on the insights gained from implementing the IR&DT…

Statewide assessment data available from two school years, two grade levels, and five sources (achievement tests; student, principal, and teacher questionnaires; and principal interviews), were aggregated to more closely investigate the relationship between student/school characteristics and student achievement. To organize this large number of…

In February 1980, a survey was conducted of 135 rural community/junior colleges in the Southeast to determine the college president's perception of the role and activities of the office of institutional research (OIR). Specifically, the survey instrument solicited information concerning: (1) the OIR's areas of inquiry with regard to…