Evaluations of educational programs or interventions are typically conducted in nonrandomly selected samples of schools or districts. Recent research has shown that nonrandom site selection can yield biased impact estimates. To estimate the external validity bias from nonrandom site selection, we combine lists of school districts that were…

Forestry and environmental science students enrolled in a one credit hour freshman seminar course participated in a land management evaluation and water quality sampling excursion using canoes and water sampling equipment. The purpose of this assessment was to engage students with hands-on, field based education in order to foster connections to…

Teachers today operate in highly politicized accountability environments where quick results, typically measured by K-12 test scores, are demanded. Although focusing on student learning outcomes is critical, equally essential is assuring that teacher learning opportunities which can strengthen instruction are available to teachers. A decade ago,…

As a result of the use of random assignment to treatment, randomized experiments typically have high internal validity. However, units are very rarely randomly selected from a well-defined population of interest into an experiment; this results in low external validity. Under nonrandom sampling, this means that the estimate of the sample average…

Recent research on the design of social experiments has highlighted the effects of different design choices on research findings. Since experiments rarely collect their samples using random selection, in order to address these external validity problems and design choices, recent research has focused on two areas. The first area is on methods for…

Recruitment is a key challenge for researchers conducting any large school-based study. Control is needed not only over the condition participants receive, but also over how the intervention is implemented, and may include restrictions in other areas of school and classroom functioning. We report here on our experiences in recruiting participants…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of African American males and the obstacles they experience on their path to the principalship. A secondary purpose, but very important as well, was to analyze critically the experiences of successful African American male principals to help inform the preparation of principals who…

Currently, there are approximately 1.3 million annual high school dropouts who potentially might lose $355 billion of income over their lifetimes. Effectively addressing retention and dropout issues has far-reaching societal implications. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between ninth-grade retention and on-time graduation. For the…

Agricultural education teachers' attitudes about the perceptions of diversity inclusion in their programs are variables that may have a strong influence on the number of students that enroll in agricultural education. This study examines the effect of teachers' demographic and personal characteristics on their perceptions of the benefits of…

Presently the paucity of scholarship available is often unitary in nature and usually focuses on the lived experiences of African Americans principals in a predominately African American urban context and as well as emphasizes the necessity of same race principals for the purpose of mentorship and racial representation. Race and cultural identity…

This study analyzed Texas secondary agricultural education teachers' (n = 232) attitudes toward diversity inclusion in Texas secondary agricultural education programs. Using a web-based questionnaire, the researcher employed a nonproportional stratified random sampling technique. Researchers used descriptive statistics to report demographic and…

The "Texas K-12 & School Choice Survey" project, commissioned by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice and conducted by Braun Research, Inc. (BRI), measures Texas registered voters' familiarity and views on a range of K-12 education topics and school choice reforms. The author and his colleagues report response levels and…

As the accountability standards for schools throughout the nation become more pressing, the relationship between the school superintendent and the local school board has become even more critical to a school's success. A clearer picture of the desired competencies of school superintendents by local boards of education should assist both parties in…

Introduction: The results of a 2009-2010 program evaluation study that examined parents, teachers of students with visual impairments, administrators, and students regarding overall satisfaction with and effectiveness of the short-term programs at a residential school for students who are blind and visually impaired are described. The findings are…

This report examines the results of the field test for the base year of the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09). The general purposes of the field test were, in anticipation of the base-year full-scale effort, to test instruments, forms, and procedures; to experiment with different approaches to questionnaire content and survey…