Recently, statisticians have begun developing methods to improve the generalizability of results from large-scale experiments in education. This work has included the development of methods for improved site selection when random sampling is infeasible, including the use of stratification and targeted recruitment strategies. This article provides…

Randomized experiments are commonly used to evaluate if particular interventions improve student achievement. While these experiments can establish that a treatment actually "causes" changes, typically the participants are not randomly selected from a well-defined population and therefore the results do not readily generalize. Three…

Purpose: District effectiveness research (DER) is an emerging field concerned with identifying the organizational structures, administration, and leadership practices at the school district level that help districts find success with all of their students across the schools within the system. This work has mirrored much of the early school…

Educational paradigm shifts call for 21st century learners to possess the knowledge, skills, abilities, values, and experiences associated with multiple forms of literacy in a participatory learning culture. Contemporary educational systems are slow to adapt. Outside of school, people have to be self-motivated and have access to resources in order…

The State of Alaska Department of Education has created a handbook to give assistance and direction to its school districts and communities in determining the suitability of various building sites for educational facilities planning. This handbook establishes a set of basic site selection elements and offers suggested evaluation criteria for…

In order to develop criteria for site selection, this study gathered data from both a review of the literature and a questionnaire survey of state directors of vocational education. Although wide variations in criteria were discovered, five areas of concern were identified: (1) potential enrollment, (2) finances, (3) local support and initiative,…

The process of awarding the grant for the National Center for Research in Vocational Education, as authorized by the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act, began in November 1986 with the announcement of the grant competition and culminated on January 4, 1988, with the University of California at Berkeley being selected for the 5-year grant…

Demonstration programs and social experiments are often subject to sophisticated, controlled evaluations. An important factor that is not subject to control, and sometimes even goes unobserved, is overall program site quality. Site quality can be observed in process evaluations, but these tend to be expensive. This paper describes an alternative…

These guidelines were developed to assist school administrators who have the responsibility of organizing a one- to three-day professional development program. The first section outlines the tasks involved in planning and implementing a workshop. The remaining sections cover the following: (1) developing and utilizing the workshop theme; (2)…

This guide is intended to assist the potential small business proprietor in successfully starting a business in the hotel and catering industry. It is divided into five sections. The first section discusses factors to be considered in making the initial decision of whether or not to seek self-employment in the industry (options, potential…

This paper proposes use of an assessment tool called "commodity relations," to measure national knowledge resources to help companies make better site selections for international production operations. The paper first reviews traditional measures of human capital, such as average years of education per individual and literacy rates. The…

Field testing, the last step in the developmental cycle for educational products, must ascertain whether the test product, placed in a natural environment, will actually elicit the behavioral changes it was designed to effect. A systems approach to field testing requires that certain basic areas of investigation first be established. Specific…

This document is designed to inform architects and school administrators of performance standards for new school construction. It can determine the worth of design proposals during the preliminary design stage and assist in evaluating existing schools. Evaluators can rate buildings against certain criteria in each of ten categories on the scale of…

The culmination of educational experiences in the outdoors is the resident outdoor education program. Involving teachers and pupils living and learning in the natural environment, the program emphasizes the development of human values and provides students with learning opportunities that focus on direct, real, and relevant experiences. Intended…