Considers individual students' progress as they use tools, discuss data distributions, and interact with teachers and their peers. Suggests that data display tools provide a partial context for discussions but do not constrain the students' interpretations or the way they reason about the data. (Author/MM)

Shares three ideas concerning how to evaluate the practical importance of developmental findings to make them more useful to policymakers: (1) statistical significance tests need to be accompanied by effect size estimates; (2) meta-analyses are helping in using all existing data when examining issues involved in policy debates; and (3) researchers…

Presents some examples illustrating the importance of probability, data analysis, and statistics for the preservice mathematics teacher, and suggests ways of teaching these topics. (Contains 13 references.) (ASK)

Teachers' quests for more data-based planning, problem solving, and decision making often stumble against limited capacities for engaging in thoughtful interactions, with groups typically lacking process tools, collaborative communication skills, and reflective habits. This article presents a three-phase model for guiding data-driven dialogue in…

Research strategies related to data collection and data analysis were identified through content analysis of 427 articles in three comparative-education journals, published between 1985 and 1995, and 112 articles published between 1964 and 1966. In recent years, the strategies used have become more diverse, the geographic focus of research has…

Describes the benefits of an activity in which students analyze a data set comprised of information from obituaries found in local newspapers. The activity combines two instructional approaches: (1) hands-on learning; and (2) generalizing underlying principles to new situations. Discusses the outcomes of student learning from the activity. (CMK)

Compares and contrasts data from around 1909, when F. Parsons's "Choosing a Vocation" was published, with contemporary data on the workplace and the American worker. Suggests that having information about occupations is still an essential component of career counseling and presents ideas for updating knowledge about the increasingly complex world…

Examines practical issues of measuring and reporting competencies. Explores the pursuit of common systems for counting, describing, and measuring competencies. Provides an overview of the role that validity and reliability play in the process of making competencies transportable, both within and outside postsecondary education. (EV)

As standards-based instruction and the focus on accountability have grown over the last decade, technology's role has grown in importance. Research surrounding high-performing schools shows that there are four important uses of technology in these schools: (1) A student information system to store and manage data connected to students; (2) An…

In this article, the author describes some of the possible components needed to develop multilevel theory that support the scaling of reading interventions. Scaling can be defined in a number of ways: depth, sustainability, spread, and shift (see Coburn, 2003). The author treats "scaling" in this paper as it has been traditionally…

The authors discuss the applicability of nonparametric item response theory (IRT) models to the construction and psychometric analysis of personality and psychopathology scales, and they contrast these models with parametric IRT models. They describe the fit of nonparametric IRT to the Depression content scale of the Minnesota Multiphasic…

Students at the middle school level are expected to use appropriate tools and techniques, including mathematics and graphing, to analyze and interpret data and communicate experimental findings. Measures of central tendency (mean, median, and mode--see sidebar for definitions) are often used as descriptive statistics when students conduct…

The author presents an instrumental case study from an ethnographic research that examined how George, a student in one diverse fifth grade classroom, participated in a series of drama engagements to respond and construct meaning from the picture book "Friends from the other side/Amigos del otro lado" by G. Anzaldua (Children's Books Press,…

The scarce attention to the assessment and evaluation in science education research has been especially harmful for teaching science-technology-society (STS) issues, due to the dialectical, tentative, value-laden, and polemic nature of most STS topics. This paper tackles the methodological difficulties of the instruments that monitor views related…

Three major investigations were conducted in an effort to determine the impact of home school regulations on educational enrollments in the United States. Home school regulations were obtained from state departments of education and investigated to determine the strength of the accountability measures. Populations representative of the school-age…