If we let all students at Ithaca College be our population, then our Office of Institutional Research can provide us with various parameters about this population. For example, we can obtain parameters regarding SAT scores, birth month, and GPA. Each student samples from the population and we compare their results to the parameters. This allows us…

This article revisits the important issue raised by Peter Tymms where he challenges the official government reports of an impressive rise in standards in mathematics and English in primary schools in England since 1995, suggesting that the rise in scores, particularly since 2000, does not indicate rising standards. In order to substantiate its…

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) is a data collection system of the National Center for Education Statistics which has as its mission the collection and publication of data on the condition of education in the United States. The NHES provides descriptive data through a random digit dialed telephone survey of the noninstitutionalized…

This manual was developed to assist school jurisdiction personnel in implementing effective customer satisfaction surveys by telephone or through mailed surveys to be completed by the customer. It provides background information about market research field activities and processes and gives an overview of the entire data collection process,…

The National Education Longitudinal Studies Program (NELS) is a long-term effort that encompasses the educational experience of youth from three decades. This report is based on the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), a component of the NELS series that began as a national probability sample of eighth grade schools and…

This report presents the results of a working meeting to provide guidance to staff at the National Center for Education Statistics on: (1) establishing guidelines for inclusion of limited-English-proficient (LEP) students in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), field tests, research, and development; (2) modifications in the…

A problem that arises when a differential item functioning (DIF) study is done with samples of examinees differing in ability is examined. A test may function differently when the populations from which the items are calibrated are not of equal ability. Since the lower ability examinees get many difficult items incorrect, the spread (standard…

This study investigated the extent to which log-linear smoothing could improve the accuracy of common-item equating by the chained equipercentile method in small samples of examinees. Examinee response data from a 100-item test (the Advanced Placement Examination in United States History) were used to create two overlapping forms of 58 items each,…

A review of the literature on writing in a non-native or second language looked at empirical research, responded to a series of questions on the state of the art, and identified an agenda for future research. The questions addressed these issues: how writing ability in a non-native language (NNL) develops: whether there are developmental stages;…

Most institutions of higher education have a mission that specifically addresses three areas: instruction, research, and service. The repertoire of activities and the complexity of the goals of the University Library mirror the goals of the institution, the academic units, and the faculty. The clients of the library are the students, the faculty,…

Faculty members in departments of chemistry, computer science, and education were surveyed to collect information on the content representativeness of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Advanced Tests in those disciplines. Faculty respondents allocated percentages to each of the major content categories of the specifications for the tests to…

This paper documents the achievement monitoring component of a three-year study on the acquisition of addition-subtraction problem-solving skills by young children. A set of performance objectives contained in or ancillary to ten instructional units on sentence-writing for verbal problems and algorithms specified test content. Tests measuring…

These tips on surveying public opinion are based on the contention that community surveys can be useful to educators who want to know what the community is thinking about education, are ready to respond, and have no qualms about making survey results public. The author first discusses the importance of determination of the community survey's…

This manual is designed to familiarize data users with the procedures followed for data collection and processing of the base-year school component of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88). A corollary objective is to provide the necessary documentation for use of the data files. The manual provides a wide range of…

Error profiles for the Fall Enrollment Survey of the Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS) were developed as part of an assessment of the quality of survey data. Three statistics were of particular interest: the count of full-time equivalent students, the breakdown by race/ethnicity, and the count of unclassified students. Attention…