While doctoral leadership programs have widely adopted Improvement Science (IS) as a signature pedagogy, few studies have examined how to best equip doctoral students with the knowledge and research skills they need to utilize IS in practice. More specifically, research is needed to determine the most effective and meaningful pedagogy for…

The purpose of this study was to determine the leadership practices needed to improve academic achievement and generate positive change in school organizations. The study was also conducted to provide insight to principal preparation programs and school districts about effective transformational leadership practices. A quantitative research method…

The study reported in this paper, a Multistage Longitudinal Comparative (MLC) Design Stage II evaluation conducted as a planned preliminary efficacy evaluation (psychometric evaluation of measures, short-term controlled outcome studies, etc.) of the Changing Lives Program (CLP), provided evidence for the reliability and validity of qualitative…

This study assessed the types of research and the statistical methods used in three representative health education journals from 1994 through 2003. Editorials, commentaries, program/practice notes, and perspectives represent 17.6% of the journals' content. The most common types of articles are cross-sectional studies (27.5%), reviews (23.2%), and…

This is one of a series of eight short monographs intended to aid practicing educators in planning and conducting accountability programs in schools. This booklet discusses how to select a statistical technique that is appropriate to the objectives of a particular research or evaluation effort. Short sections focus in turn on classifying a study,…

Illustrates the usefulness of "tree-generating" statistics for public sector service planning, focusing on the use of Automatic Interaction Detection, an early version of tree-generating statistics, to provide a model for the data analysis needed to plan substance abuse programs on a local level. (SLD)

Some specific opportunities and techniques are described for combining and integrating qualitative and quantitative methods from the design stage of a substance abuse program evaluation through implementation and reporting. The multiple problems and requirements of such an evaluation make integrated methods essential. (SLD)

Educators in North Carolina, recognizing a need to develop a more objective, performance-based teacher evaluation system, determined that evaluation of teachers should have both formative and summative outcomes and should focus on improvement of teacher skills. The Teacher Performance Appraisal System (TPAS), a companion to the North Carolina…

Considerations in conducting attitude surveys concerning bilingual education are discussed. An introductory section examines briefly the history of the controversy over bilingual education, legislative initiatives, and some previous opinion research. Specific kinds of information needs relating to public opinion are then noted and problems arising…

This book, in its second edition, is intended as a practical guide to conducting action research in schools--it outlines the process of designing and reporting an action research project. Contending that action research can be used as a powerful tool that can contribute to school renewal and instructional improvement, the book defines and presents…

Describes organization and evaluation of 13 workshops at the University of Wisconsin-Madison providing professional development for clinical research support staff. Topics included ethics, protocol development, statistics, audits, and tips and tools for successful research. Evaluation indicated the workshops met educational goals but did not…

A detailed description is provided of the variable general implementation of the instructional programming model (GOSA), which is part of the analysis in phase I of the Evaluation of Practices in Individualized Schooling. The variable is defined; the questionnaires on which the variable is based are listed; the procedures used to scale the…

This paper shows that Garfinkel and Gramlich's conclusion about the average performance of the contractors is not supported by the data. The discussion focuses on three issues: (1) The study was conducted in such a way that performance contracting schools and the comparison schools were generally not comparable in terms of initial achievement,…

This dissertation focuses on predicting alumni gift giving behavior at a large public research university (University of Michigan). A conceptual model was developed for predicting alumni giving behavior in order to advance the theoretical understanding of how capacity to give, motivation to give, and their interaction effect gift giving behavior.…

These guidelines, which summarize the content of desegregation program evaluation studies, are organized into five chapters. The first is an "Introduction and Overview." Chapter 2 specifies desegregation program variables which are important in planning and designing evaluation studies. The structural and student variables that are required in the…