In 1988, a project was undertaken at Chabot College in California to develop a questionnaire and study methodology for assessing the views of employers regarding the business applications of typewriters and computers. Staff at the college needed this information for curriculum and program planning, as well as for equipment and supply budgeting.…

A two-stage procedure for the analysis of pretest-posttest data was developed and illustrated. Data were reanalyzed from a quasi-experimental evaluation that assessed the effects of an intervention program to teach elementary school children aged 10 to 12 years to watch violence on television more carefully/critically. The treatment group…

Forty-one readings are presented on the social ecology variables and interventions that characterize the life of persons with disabilities. The readings are grouped into six categories dealing respectively with background, assessment of student-centered variables, interventions relating to student-centered variables, program-centered variables,…

This brochure highlights the role of the school counselor in using educational research, and emphasizes the relationship between bias (racism and sexism) and past and present research. The tests counselors use, the ways test results are interpreted, and counseling techniques are all based on educational research. Counselors are cautioned to…

This monograph reports the key findings of the Foundation for Child Development's 1989 Forum on Children and the Family Support Act, a forum convened to examine the potential effects of the Family Support Act (FSA) on children. The following topics were addressed: (1) population and characteristics of children who will be affected by the FSA; (2)…

The role of survey data in assessing teacher supply, demand, and shortage is illustrated through a description of the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) of the National Center for Education Statistics. This survey exemplifies a method that involves: (1) a sample survey; (2) representative surveys; (3) cross-sectional surveys; and (4) comprehensive…

This paper describes two studies that utilize different research methods, one statistical and one non-statistical, conducted by The National Urban League to assess the needs of black communities. The first study, Black Pulse, whose purpose was to assess the conditions and attitudes of black Americans, consisted of a detailed, statistical survey of…

The purpose of the present investigation is to study the hierarchical structure of academic self-concept. The original Shavelson model posited specific facets of academic self-concept to define a single higher-order facet, but Marsh and Shavelson (1985) found the hierarchical structure to be more complicated. In a revised model they proposed that…

This digest of 310 Project evaluation methods is intended to provide examples of and guidelines for evaluating 310 projects at the national, state, and project levels. The first section, which is devoted to state-level 310 evaluation projects, includes a report on a longitudinal study assessing the impact of 310 projects in Florida, a report…

Featuring 11 articles of original research, this collection presents selected works from the proceedings of the ninth Annual Communications Research Symposium. Following are the titles and authors of the articles included: (1) "Issues in Inferring Media Effects from Surveys" (S. H. Chaffee); (2) "Expectancy Value Theory and…

The process used by one researcher in developing an inventory of specific tasks performed by language teachers is described. The objective was to facilitate research on language teachers' jobs in a variety of countries and under differing teaching conditions and to provide job profiles for use in teacher education and by teachers, their unions,…

Phase III of the Louisiana School Effectiveness Study (LSES-III) was designed in part to obtain rich, qualitative data on the characteristics of more and less effective schools in the Gulf South. Data were gathered on eight matched outlier pairs of schools during the 1984-1985 school year. Of the eight historically ineffective schools in LSES-III,…

A project was undertaken to develop and field-test new methodologies for collecting follow-up and placement data on completers of Miami-Dade Community College (MDCC). Strategies used in the study included exploration of such nontraditional data sources as in- and out-of-state private university transfers, state university system tapes for all…

A computer program for classifying elements of a language corpus for large-scale analysis is discussed. The approach is based on the assumption that there is a natural unit in speech processing and production, called a tone unit. The program "tags" the five grammatical phrase types (verb, adverb, adjective, noun, and prepositional) to…

The Institute for Research on Educational Finance and Governance (IFG) has designed and implemented a major survey of public and private schools in the six-county San Francisco Bay Area which focuses on organizational dimensions in elementary and secondary schools. Private schools include Catholic parochial and private schools, independent…