In recent years, interest has spiked in data-driven decision making in education--that is, using various types of student data to inform decisions in schools and classrooms. In October 2008, the Council of the Great City Schools and American Institutes for Research (AIR) launched a project funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that focused…

Policymakers across the nation are leading efforts to ensure that every classroom has an effective teacher. Faced with the need to dramatically improve student outcomes, states have embraced a policy agenda that promotes and supports teacher quality in many ways, including developing evaluation and compensation policies, targeting professional…

The purpose of this guide is to empower people to more effectively use data as information. To accomplish this, the publication explains what metadata are; why metadata are critical to the development of sound education data systems; what components comprise a metadata system; what value metadata bring to data management and use; and how to…

Research led by the Consortium on Chicago Public School Research (University of Chicago) and the Center for Social Organization of Schools (Johns Hopkins University), has identified specific indicators--students' academic characteristics--that provide early signals that students are on a path toward dropping out of high school. Measured at…

This brief describes how investments in student data systems are taking family engagement and student achievement to a whole new level. In addition to addressing areas where a student most needs improvement, the data can serve as a catalyst for home-school communication. Parents benefit from having information about key indicators on which they…

This study assessed students' satisfaction with Ramkhamhaeng University regional library services (RURLs) and the perceived quality of information retrieved from other information sources. In particular, this study investigated factors relating to regional students' selection of information sources to meet their information needs. The researcher…

The development of new communication technologies has led to a push for greater technology use for teaching and learning. This is most true for distance learning education, which relies heavily on new technologies. Distance learning students, however, seem to have very limited time available for studying and learning because of work and/or family…

Meaningful use (MU) of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) is an important development in the safety and security of health care delivery in the United States. Advancement in the use of EHRs occurred with the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which provides incentives for providers to support adoption and use of EHRs.…

Choosing a college is one of the first important decisions that many young adults undertake. Popular media suggests how students should find an appropriate college based on traditional practices (Hallet, 2008; Kulman, 2007), yet, many aspects of the reality experienced by new kinds of students and colleges is largely ignored in the college choice…

In this classic introduction to educational and psychological measurement, Thorndike and Thorndike-Christ provide all of the pertinent information future professionals need to know in order to develop the skills to use test information wisely. Incorporating standard measurement concepts as they apply to both educational and psychological…

Bridgewater State University (BSU) is a public institution that falls under the Carnegie classification of Master's Colleges and Universities. BSU is committed to serving students in the New England region. This student population includes a sizeable number of underrepresented students. BSU is dealing with intense pressure to serve these students…

The U.S. Constitution requires a national census once every 10 years. The census is a count of everyone (all ages, races, ethnic groups, both citizens and non-citizens) residing in the United States: in all 50 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa.…

In this study, a self-report measure of intervention usage, the Usage Rating Profile for Interventions (URP-I) is developed and empirically examined with regard to factor structure and internal consistency. Results supported that intervention usage is associated with at least 4 different constructs, and that a measure consisting of 25 items may…

People often make inferences with incomplete information. Previous research has led to a mixed picture of how people treat missing information. To explain these results, the authors follow the Brunswikian perspective on human inference and hypothesize that the mechanism's accuracy for treating missing information depends on how it is distributed…

In 2010, Jobs for the Future (JFF) contracted BTW "informing change" (BTW) to conduct a study on developmental education (DevEd) practices and policies in the state of Florida. This study was undertaken with two purposes. First, JFF wanted to see what common threads could be identified among the strategies and approaches of community…