This paper focuses on the mechanics of assessing the impact of educational technology. The basics of program evaluation, research design, data collection and analysis, and report generation are covered to provide useful information to those responsible for program evaluation research and to decision makers, who are the usual recipients of…

The purpose of this study was to compare the scores of students who were allowed unlimited retakes of a multiple-choice test with the scores of students who were limited to only four retakes (five trials) of the same test. The tests were each made up of 20 randomly drawn questions from a large pool of questions about research methods. Three…

Although an extensive body of literature exists on Head Start, only a small part of this literature is program impact research. The body of existing research is inadequate in size, quality, and comparability for use in drawing conclusions about the impact of Head Start in any area in which Head Start provides services. This report from the General…

This publication reports on a policy conversation, the theme for which was defining a research strategy for literacy in Canada. It is a compilation of a variety of documents--some were available at the event, others have been prepared to summarize the policy conversation itself. Section I, National Literacy Secretariat (NLS): Policy Conversations,…

A shortage of teachers to staff primary and secondary schools is a common occurrence internationally. The fact of, or potential for, teacher shortages is a major consideration in any nation's aspirations of attaining, or maintaining, an educational system of high quality. To study and understand the nature of teacher shortages, it is first…

In response to 1986 state legislation calling for improvements in college effectiveness and accountability, the California Community Colleges began various efforts to promote the evaluation of matriculation. One effort, the Matriculation Local Research Options Project, was formed in 1989 to develop models for local evaluation of matriculation and…

Standard errors and bias of unidimensional and multidimensional ability estimates were compared in a factorial, simulation design with two item response theory (IRT) approaches, two levels of test correlation (0.42 and 0.63), two sample sizes (500 and 1,000), and a hierarchical test content structure. Bias and standard errors of subtest scores…

Hypermedia computing now makes it possible to integrate media into interactive programs with the potential to expand the use of visualization in science, art, and other professional disciplines. After an overview of some visualization issues in hypermedia, a research project called "HyperGlyphs" at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in…

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…

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 paper describes several common types of research studies in special education transition literature and the threats to their validity. It then describes how the evidential base may be broadened, how diverse sources of evidence can be combined to strengthen causal inferences, and the role of judgment within quasi-experimentation. The paper…

This volume contains 11 appendices to a user's manual that provides guidance and documentation for users of the public release data for the student component of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88). The general aim of the NELS, a continuing long-term project, is to study the educational, vocational, and personal development…

Although color vision deficiency is a prevalent problem in childhood, little is known about the cognitive and social-emotional variables linked to this difficulty. A review of the literature revealed seven empirical articles exploring the psychological functioning of color-deficient children, with the results yielding contradictory findings. The…

This paper reviews five broad types of research that are designed to determine whether or how teacher education has made a difference to teachers. The five genres consist of: (1) a line of reasoning about where one might look for the effects of teacher education and how one might design a research study to see the impact of teacher education; (2)…

The practice of student teaching is used in this report to describe a structural design model for educational practices and to illustrate applications of the model. Developing such a model involves analyzing research studies and describing related practices. The results of the research analysis in this study are applied to student teaching in the…