During round 16 of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), 900 NLSY sample members were randomly assigned to be interviewed about the period since their round 14 interview. Their responses were compared to those of approximately 8,000 NLSY sample members who were assigned to be interviewed about the 1-year period since their round 15…

This paper proposed some limitations on "quantitative-only" research focusing on Puerto Rican poverty in the United States. An overreliance on quantitative data may not allow for a full understanding and awareness of the nature and maintenance of poverty in Puerto Rican communities in the United States. An understanding of Puerto Rican…

This book offers a resource guide for qualitative researchers in education, discussing data collection techniques, data analysis, reporting, and the issues of validity, reliability, and ethics. Part 1 reviews the nature and design of qualitative research; it discusses various types of qualitative research (including case studies), and how to…

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…

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) is a data collection system of the National Center for Education Statistics. It focuses on educational issues that are best addressed by contacting individual households rather than institutions. The primary purpose of the NHES is to conduct repeated measurements of the same phenomena at different…

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) is a new study that will focus on children's early school experiences beginning in kindergarten. Approximately 23,000 children will be selected as they enter kindergarten and followed through fifth grade. Base-year data will be collected in the fall of 1998, but there will a field test in the 1996-97…

The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 shifts decision-making authority for funding of local job training programs from the federal government to state and local boards, which will need local decision-making tools to inform policy. One such tool is a method proposed by S. Goetz and D. Debertin to estimate demand for educational attainment at the…

This document, originally published in a journal, investigates whether matriculation works and if so how does it affect students. The document uses the data from a study done at the Riverside Community College District (RCCD), which addressed the effect of matriculation on student persistence. The RCCD data came from a variety of sources and…

This publication contains the questionnaires used by the U.S. Bureau of the Census to conduct the 1999-2000 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) and the Private School Universe Survey (PSS) for the National Center for Education Statistics. SASS is a mail survey of schools, teachers, principals, and school district administrators. The PSS is a data…

This document highlights the problems with current federal education program data collection activities and lists several factors that make movement toward a possible solution, then discusses the vision for the Integrated Performance and Benchmarking System (IPBS), a vision of an Internet-based system for harvesting information from states about…

This paper examines young peoples' ideas and their dreams of the future. It is part of a longitudinal study in which students at four schools in Australia were interviewed twice a year during their time in secondary school. The paper claims that this long-term engagement with individuals heightened specificity of the dreams, though it was…

This study explored the possibility of using the Multi-Trait Multi-Method (MTMM) approach of D. Campbell and D. Fiske (1959) to examine the educational ecology of classrooms. Using the MTMM approach, the study focuses on the extent to which multiple methods of inquiry (surveys, drawings, and videos) are valid indicators of classroom teaching and…

This book seeks to set the record straight about today's "reading wars," and analyzes the three major "battle cries" of whole language critics. In a step-by-step dissection, the book reiterates the three arguments, then explores the most salient studies that support or refute them. According to the book, the three claims are:…

This paper presents an approach to the improvement of qualitative research courses in graduate schools, based on the case study of a graduate class. The study sought to link research to teaching through a qualitative research workshop. The course was developed to promote two goals: (1) community-building among graduate researchers, and (2)…

This paper shows how the concept of general objectivity can be used to improve behavioral science measurement, particularly as it applies to the Lexile Framework, a tool for objectively measuring reading comprehension. It begins with a dialogue between a physicist and a psychometrician that details some of the differences between physical science…