In an effort to promote learning in classrooms, political science instructors are increasingly turning to interactive teaching strategies--experiments, simulations, etc.--that supplement traditional lecture formats. In this article, I advocate the use of student-generated data as a powerful teaching tool that can be used in a variety of ways to…

Every year the U.S. Department of Education reports for each state in the country the grade levels, subject areas, and geographic areas that have experienced teacher shortages (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education, 2015). A teacher shortage occurs when the number of teachers available in a specific grade, subject matter…

The article addresses the question of how the assessment process with large-scale data derived from online learning environments will be different from the assessment process without it. Following an explanation of big data and how it is different from previously available learner data, we describe three notable features that characterize…

The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) examined nine research areas of interest to its members in 2017. Six took the form of 60-Second Surveys; one was a career profile; another examined community college completion initiatives including student attitudes about community college; and one was completed in…

Purpose/Objective: Under the reauthorized Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), states and districts retain greater discretion over the measures included in school quality report cards. Moreover, ESSA now requires states to expand their measurement efforts to address factors like school climate. This shift toward more comprehensive measures of school…

This report reviews the major international and regional large-scale educational assessments, including international surveys, school-based surveys and household-based surveys. The report compares and contrasts the cognitive and contextual data collection instruments and implementation methods used by the different assessments in order to identify…

Policy makers and others charged with driving economic growth often assume a link between entrepreneurship education and business start-up. However, there is little by way of supporting literature in this regard, with few studies exploring impact measures that relate to actual venture creation. This paper considers two routinely collected data…

The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a difference in how high and low performing elementary school districts use and analyze data to differentiate instruction, make changes to district/grade level curriculum, determine professional development needs, determine teacher effectiveness, and determine the use of school district…

Background: Despite increased access to student learning data, scholars have demonstrated that teachers do not always know how to use these data in ways that lead to deep changes in instruction and often lack skills and knowledge to interpret results and develop solutions. In response, administrators have invested in instructional coaches, data…

This article examines an understudied aspect of teachers' sensemaking of student learning data: the way in which teachers explain the causes of the outcomes observed in data. Drawing on sensemaking and attribution theory and data collected in six middle schools, we find that while teachers most often attributed outcomes to their own instruction,…

The primary purpose of this study was to provide quantitative data on the use of released Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) exams as benchmark test instruments in a sample population. Teachers have expressed concern over "teaching to the test," especially with the use of benchmark testing. This study was specifically…

Achieving the Dream (ATD) is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to improving outcomes among community college students, especially low-income students and students of color. A central ATD strategy is to promote a "culture of evidence," in which colleges collect, analyze, and make decisions based on information about students in…

This brief, semi-technical handbook describes the various data systems of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) with summaries of background, purpose and scope, sample design, data collection procedures, questionnaire content, data release, and data uses for individual NCHS surveys. NCHS operates a diverse survey and inventory program…

Presents conceptual and analytical framework for addressing change in public opinion. Explores the possibility that public opinion changes because publics change. Concludes that, by modifying existing component-difference research methods, the proximate sources of societal change can be separated using repeated survey data. Provides an example by…

Probes two aspects of scientific communication: (1) the extent to which journal article authors continue work in the same area as their articles; (2) the sources of information used by active researchers in conjunction with their current research. (Author/JM)