A survey of high school juniors and seniors in areas served by members of the Appalachian Developing Institutions Consortium was conducted to: (1) discover the kind of image each consortium institution had with these students; and (2) obtain information on these students' backgrounds and educational plans to assist administrations in establishing…

This report is part of the Florida Department of Education, Title III, ESEA, Educational Needs Assessment study and deals exclusively with information and data collected from questionnaires administered to a sample of seven educationally relevant subpopulations within the State. These subpopulations included students, teachers, principals,…

A number of hypotheses derived from sociological theory and from previous research concerning the potential collaboration of citizens of the United States and Mexico were tested. Included in the samples were 1,528 interviews from the United States general public; 306 interviews from rural persons residing in places of 2,500 or less in Michigan;…

This article examines statistical issues raised when standard methods are used to analyze educable placement data to determine possible racial discrimination. An alternate approach is offered that detects disparities while avoiding the pitfalls of present methodologies. (BS)

A discussion of in-depth interviewing as a method for research on language teaching and learning situates the technique within the continuum of research methodology and differentiates it from quantitative research methods. The strengths and weaknesses of in-depth interviewing are examined, methods of sampling are discussed, and advice on the…

Although the American public still upholds its educational system, support has declined during the past decade. Public opinion surveys furnish valuable information about voter attitudes; they are also a vehicle to communicate information to the public. Districts should poll the public regularly to ensure that all client groups remain reasonably…

The validity of logistic test models and computer simulation methods for generating sampling distributions of item bias statistics was evaluated under the hypothesis of no item bias. Test data from 937 ninth-grade students were used to develop 7 steps for applying computer-simulated baseline statistics in test development. (SLD)

Described is an introductory probability and statistics class focused on teaching the concepts of sampling and binomial distributions through a strategy based on teacher and student generated simulation using the Boxer computer language. The value of integrating programing with teaching subject matter is demonstrated, and sample student work is…

A three-level multivariate statistical modeling strategy is presented that resolves the question of whether the unit of analysis should be the teacher or the student. A reanalysis of U.S. high school data (51 Catholic and 59 public schools from the High School and Beyond survey) illustrates the model. (SLD)

In this article, the author discusses the use in policy analysis of models that incorporate uncertainty. He believes that all models should consider incorporating uncertainty, but that at the same time it is important to understand that sampling variability is not usually the dominant driver of uncertainty in policy analyses. He also argues that…

This report reviews five major international comparative studies on educational practices, assessment systems, and educational outcomes for students with disabilities. The five studies reviewed are: (1) the Reading Literacy Survey conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA); (2) the International…

As part of a continuing evaluation of the Swedish school system, changes in intelligence test scores from 1960 to 1995 were studied in relation to cohort, gender, and socioeconomic background. Changes in verbal, spatial, and reasoning ability were studied by comparing results on identical tests given to representative samples of Swedish…

This report documents the design and data analysis procedures of the Trial State Assessment Program of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Today the NAEP is the only survey using advanced plausible values methodology that uses a multiple imputation procedure in a psychometric context. The 1990 Trial State Assessment collected…

The nine-volume Survey Kit is designed to help readers prepare and conduct surveys and become better users of survey results. All the books in the series contain instructional objectives, exercises and answers, examples of surveys in use, illustrations of survey questions, guidelines for action, checklists of "dos and don'ts," and…

This report documents activities in preparation for the fourth follow-up of the sophomore cohort of the High School and Beyond (HSB) study in 1992. It describes the development and testing of the data collection systems. The HSB in 1992 is the fifth wave of the longitudinal study of the high school sophomore class of 1980. This longitudinal…