Investigated the effects of types and prevalence of response patterns that might be provided by nonattending respondents on Cronbach's alpha (L. Cronbach, 1970) using three simulated data sets. Effects were greater as a function of increased prevalence in the respondent group, but as few as 5% of some types of nonattending patterns had inflating…

The American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting attracts several thousand participants. With several hundred sessions combined with opportunities for other professional, social, and personal activities, the meeting provides a widely varied set of experiences. The market survey conducted at the 1993 Annual Meeting sought to…

The controversy regarding reverse or negatively-worded survey stems has been around for several decades. The practice has been used to guard against acquiescent or response set behaviors. A 20-item, 5-point Likert item survey was designed and the stems and response sets were varied in a 2 by 3 design. One independent variable was type of item…

Assessed the use and perceptions of techniques used to evaluate graduates of National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education accredited institutions through a survey completed by 107 deans/directors of education at such institutions. Findings identify the five most highly rated methods and show the use of mostly traditional, but some…

The incidence of three types of behaviors consistent with nonattending in completing surveys was studied with 1,240 elementary school students, 3,541 students in grades 5 through 12, and 2,688 teachers. While the proportion of missing items did not seem to be a problem, there is evidence of patterns that indicate nonattending behavior. (SLD)

Describes the process of objective identification through the development and use of an objective priorization instrument responded to by a stratified, random sample of the Society for Nutrition Education (SNE) membership. (Author/MA)

The DELPHI procedure requires respondents to reply to several questionnaire iterations with subsequent rounds containing previous round feedback. This study investigated the methodology (response rates, effects of feedback) and offered evidence that large-scale DELPHI surveys are not as advantageous as has previously been indicated. Suggestions…

Complementing a 1973 survey of management information systems in state departments of education, the conclusions developed in this study present an overview of MIS development and implementation in six states: Georgia, Iowa, Maryland, Oregon, Texas, and Utah. In-depth case studies examine the concerns of MIS personnel and provide insights…

A 20-item survey was designed in 4 forms with response set direction as "strongly disagree" (SD) to "strongly agree" (SA) and SA to SD crossed with the absence or presence of negatively worded item stems. The primary research question related to finding a primacy effect when comparing the two response direction formats. Surveys…

When self-administered surveys or questionnaires are administered, there is often a question of whether respondents have attended to the items in a thoughtful manner. This paper examines the results of three different surveys to investigate the occurrence of nonattending behaviors such as missing items, patterns that indicate lack of…