Survey methodology is the dominant approach among universities in the United States for reporting employment outcomes for recent graduates. However, past studies have shown that survey methodology may yield upwardly biased results, which can result in overreporting of employment rates and salary outcomes. This case study describes the development…

At the local and state level, some data collection takes place around access to devices and broadband, but little alignment across these collections exists to paint an accurate picture of how and where digital equity gaps persist nationwide. Dell Technologies and the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) collaborated to assess…

"The Forum Guide to Strategies for Education Data Collection and Reporting (SEDCAR)" was created to provide timely and useful best practices for education agencies that are interested in designing and implementing a strategy for data collection and reporting, focusing on these as key elements of the larger data process. It builds upon…

Determining which students are at-risk of poorer outcomes -- such as dropping out, failing classes, or decreasing standardized examination scores -- has become an important area of both research and practice in K-12 education. The models produced from this type of predictive modeling research are increasingly used by high schools in Early Warning…

This dissertation is composed of projects on three aspects of gathering and learning from data in the social sciences: drawing representative samples, taking valid measurement, and making warranted inductive inferences. Chapter one studies the challenge of drawing representative human samples. It is well documented that most samples used by…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study, examine and apply lean management principles to the curriculum revision and internship placement process in an academic program at an institution of higher education. Design/methodology/approach: This paper consists of two sections. The first section reviews the literature on lean principles, lean…

Purpose: Researchers now have more ways than ever before to capture information about groups of interest. In many areas, these are augmenting traditional survey approaches -- in others, new methods are potential replacements. This paper aims to explore three key trends: use of nonprobability samples, mobile data collection and administrative and…

We describe the benefits and challenges of engaging in public data mining methods and situate our discussion in the context of studies that we have conducted. Practical, methodological, and scholarly benefits include the ability to access large amounts of data, randomize data, conduct both quantitative and qualitative analyses, connect educational…

The preschool landscape is complex, consisting of several publicly funded programs supported by federal, state, and local funds. Included in this landscape is Head Start, a critical early childhood education (ECE) program that serves--in every state and territory--young children in families with incomes at or below the federal poverty line,…

Many educators in California are unaware of just how harmful out of school suspensions can be. When suspended students are barred from attending school, more often than not, the rule broken was some form of minor misconduct. This update of "Lost Instruction Time in California Schools" demonstrates that despite the important efforts by…

Background: Knowledge brokering by intermediary organizations includes knowledge distillation processes (e.g., synthesis, translation). Aims and objectives: This article explores how an educational intermediary performs research distillation when creating virtual knowledge reservoirs for educators. Methods: The authors use qualitative data from…

In 2019, the Texas legislature passed a historic education finance bill that included an initiative to add up to 30 days to the school-year calendar. One way districts can do this is to offer a voluntary summer learning program. In 2020, the American Institutes for Research, with support from The Wallace Foundation, launched the six-year Texas…

Purpose: While designing personally meaningful activities with data technologies can support the development of data literacies, this paper aims to focuses on the overlooked aspect of how learners navigate tensions between personal experiences and data trends. Design/methodology/approach: The authors report on an analysis of three student cases…

Everyone who uses student information has a responsibility to maintain students' privacy and the security of their data. Ensuring student data privacy is about so much more than complying with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). While privacy must be top of mind when thinking about collecting and using personally identifiable…

This article characterizes and reflects on the possible uses of early warning systems (hereafter, EWS) in the region as effective tools to support educational pathways, whenever they identify risks of dropout, difficulties for the achievement of substantive learning, and the possibility of organizing specific actions. This article was developed in…