This report provides testimony on results of a General Accounting Office (GAO) study of Chapter 1 Compensatory Education programs, Chapter 2 Education Block Grant programs, and dropout prevention programs. The report covers the following: (1) Chapter 1 student selection; (2) Chapter 1 fiscal provisions; (3) Chapter 2 data collection and…

In linguistic analysis of the speech act, the data used to support theoretical conclusions are too often comprised of semantically isolated utterances of the ideal speaker-hearer. In reality, one of the most revealing kinds of data is imperfect data, where the functioning language processes are often unmasked. The study of first language…

As a result of budget cuts and policy changes, health, nutrition, and social welfare programs have been rendered less able to help children and families, particularly those families hard hit by the recession. It is argued that there is no excuse for these cuts and that if the economy were growing and employment levels were high, the budget cuts…

Like the Elementary Secondary Education Act Title I, the Education Consolidation Improvement Act Chapter 1 requires school districts to determine at least once every 3 years whether Title I achievement gains are sustained over a period of 12 months or more. A local education agency (LEA) has considerable flexibility in the approach it takes in…

Based on the Kellian view of constructive alternativism (that the meanings of any idea are not fixed, but vary from individual to individual), this paper describes a technique for exploring school children's conceptions of common physical phenomena to allow science educators (1) to appreciate the alternative conceptions of their students and (2)…

This collection of documentation from library materials cost studies conducted by members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member libraries in the United States and Canada contains 11 documents divided into the following sections: (1) methodologies and data collection worksheets from the University of California at Berkeley, the…

An overview is provided of progress in the development of a management information system for the California community colleges. First, background is presented on the current Uniform Statewide Reporting System (USRS), and problems with the system are identified and discussed (i.e., lack of student outcome information, unintegrated data, lack of…

This paper discusses the experiences and insight derived from the 1985-1986 Statewide Evaluation of the Early Education Program of Handicapped Children in Louisiana, the multimethod evaluation of preschool intervention projects for handicapped and at-risk children. The program served almost 5,000 handicapped preschoolers and their parents,…

This guide is intended to assist states and service delivery areas (SDAs) in addressing the new oversight responsibilities and opportunities stipulated by the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) with respect to planning a local evaluation. The following topics are covered in the individual chapters: the objectives and scope of JTPA evaluation…

This guide is intended to assist states and service delivery areas (SDAs) in addressing the new oversight responsibilities and opportunities stipulated by the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) with respect to planning a state-level evaluation. The following topics are covered in the individual chapters: the objectives and scope of JTPA…

Research on sex differences in communication has produced mixed and contradictory results. An erroneous overlap exists between self reports of male-female behaviors, others' reports of perceived behaviors, and stereotyped projections based on social conditioning. The solution to this confusion in gender communication research may be triangulation,…

With the growing interest in comparing student achievement state by state, there is a need to develop better techniques for making such comparisons. Approaches available now, particularly the use of Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and American College Test (ACT) scores, have obvious shortcomings but nonetheless continue to be prominent because…

This study determined the effects of two data collection techniques on response rate, response bias, response validity and respondent evaluation. Administration of a computer survey was compared to a machine readable paper survey. Cover letters were sent to 249 college sophomores who were randomly selected and proportionally stratified by intended…

At the request of the Oklahoma Department of Education, the Technical Assistance Center 3 West conducted a statewide review of local Chapter 1 evaluation data to provide possible explanations for the unusual standardized test score gains or losses reported by a number of local school districts. During the two months of quality control visits, 35…

A collaborative approach to educational research was used by an elementary school principal and a university researcher. The principal's daily activities were studied, as was the relationship of the roles she performed to instructional leadership. Data were collected mainly from participant observation and field notes. The principal performed six…