The following topics are included in this document: (1) evaluation of plans for implementation of new systems; (2) macroevaluation of document retrieval systems; (3) microevaluation of retrospective searching; (4) evaluation of document acquisition functions; evluation of indexing and indexing languages; (5) evaluation of document screening; (6)…

The usefulness of item sampling with unobtrusive measures and observational data is demonstrated. Particular emphasis is given to the question: Is item sampling appropriate for estimating the differences between means as well as the means themselves? A descriptive analysis is made of one aspect of a junior high school curriculum. Twenty four…

This report reviews some ostensibly conflicting empirical findings which have been reported in conjunction with Elkind's (1967) conjecture that Piaget's conservation problems tap two distinct concepts. The discrepant findings which report on the order of emergence of identity conservation and equivalence conservation are discussed. An analysis of…

The purpose of this study was to compare five methods of computing school effectiveness indices (SEIs) from longitudinal data. The methods were within-school regression, within-school regression corrected for the unreliability of measurement, mean difference scores, average individual residual scores, and school residual scores. The sample…

The purpose of this handbook is to document a procedure for obtaining information about the interest of people for additional job training. (The procedure will result in a set of tables providing information on interest in job training for use in planning educational programs. It is designed to be flexible enough for use in areas as small as…

A high school district employed multiple matrix sampling to establish cutting scores on reading and mathematics competency tests. Entry-level job holders in the working community were tested with subtests of the intact test. Generalizations were made from the results; performances of the high school and the community groups were compared.…

From a priori and post hoc data collection perspectives, this paper describes the interrelations among (1) power, alpha, effect size, and sample size for hypothesis testing; and (2) precision, confidence, and sample size for interval estimation. Implications for special education researchers working with convenient samples of fixed size are…

Two studies used experimental data to evaluate nonexperimental methods of program evaluation for employment and training programs. Results of both studies indicated that the nonexperimental methods might not accurately replicate the experimental estimates. Also, new methods for constructing comparison groups yielded little improvement over…

Estimates of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act's net impact on participant earnings, using Continuous Longitudinal Manpower Survey data, were compared to a similar sample from the Current Population Survey. The use of multivariate matching and weighting yielded acceptable results. (GDC)

Overlap (two libraries own same title) and duplication (one library has more than one copy) in children's collections of books and audiovisual materials were measured. It was found that there was less overlap between two school libraries than between a school library and a public library. Six references are cited. (EJS)

How social studies researchers can use National Assessment of Educational Progress Public Use Data File tapes to delimit the problem of generalizability of research results is described. An example using data from a trend study of a citizenship education project is used to demonstrate the procedure. (Author/RM)

A computerized, sampling instrument is described that measures continuity and comprehensiveness of care learned by medical students at the University of Wisconsin Medical School and the clinical content of the students' experience. (Author/MLW)

This article presents a discussion of field utilization of staff development activities in the context of three separate training programs. Specifically, classroom implementation of knowledge and skills gained by participants in their training sessions was assessed via the Levels of Use (LoU) interview system. (Author/LMO)

The 1988 National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF-88), later named the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, was the first comprehensive study of higher education instructional faculty conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics since 1963. This report provides a description of the 1993 NSOPF and the data generated by its…

The five papers from this volume, which were presented at the 1997 American Statistical Association meeting, are of particular interest to users of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) survey data. They deal with the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), a periodic survey conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census for the NCES. The SASS…