Practice-as-inquiry refers to the blending of instructional practice with systematic curricular inquiry. College and university teachers, while experts in their disciplines, typically are not specialists in instructional practice. Practice-as-inquiry (also referred to as teacher-as-researcher) may function as a mechanism of continuous teaching…

This paper describes a research study completed in Singapore with students enrolled in an education degree program. The researchers were interested in the reading habits of Singaporean students who will become teachers of English in the Singapore government teaching service. Of interest is the data collection method which involved the development…

Monitoring the learning process in computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environments is a key element for supporting the efficacy of tutor actions. This article proposes an approach for analysing learning processes in a CSCL environment to support tutors in their monitoring tasks. The approach entails tracking the interactions within…

The effect of alternative census dates on the determination of student enrollment and retention rates and the accuracy of tuition revenue projections was analyzed at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. A set of pseudo-extract files was created for the first 8 weeks of two consecutive fall semesters (1993 and 1994). The accuracy of…

This booklet, which has been designed for a diverse audience, including work team members, supervisors/managers, trade union members, employers, trainers, teachers/lecturers, human resource managers, and students/trainees, presents basic information about the purpose, content, and quality of competency standards for vocational education within the…

Three major methods of survey research, face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews, and mail questionnaires, are compared with respect to the quality of the data. The literature on experimental comparisons of these methods is reviewed, and the effects of the mode of data collection on aspects of data quality are examined. The effects of the…

This handbook is a major effort to establish current and consistent terms, definitions, and classification codes to maintain, collect, report, and exchange comparable information about students. The selection of terms represents the best combined judgment of many individuals as to what data might be most useful for decision making about…

The General Accounting Office reviewed the Department of Labor's process for determining worker eligibility for the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program. TAA provides help in making the transition to new employment to workers certified by the Department of Labor as affected by imports. The program gives workers job counseling, occupational…

Student ratings of instruction are widely used as a basis for personnel decisions and faculty development recommendations. This digest discusses concerns about the validity of student ratings and presents a case for their use in teacher evaluation. There are several strong arguments for using student ratings to evaluate teachers. Students are in a…

This book is the third in a series aiming to promote international exchange of ideas, experiences, and studies relating to technical and vocational education. Intended to assist educators in the evaluation of vocational education curricula, the guide is designed for both experienced evaluators and novices. Section I describes the purpose,…

This paper describes how visual media technologies have been used to support research into the way technical diagrams are represented in people's minds. Two groups of subjects participated in this research, individuals with either a high or a low level of expertise in meteorology, specifically professional meteorologists and non-meteorologists.…

Historically, data have been collected from survey participants through a paper-and-pencil questionnaire or through interviews in person or on the telephone. This study compares the use of a new approach, interactive telephone data collection (ITDCT) to traditional paper-and-pencil collection. ITDCT administers survey items through a digitized…

A preliminary analysis of information collected from historical archives and long-time leaders in gifted education reveals a wealth of data about five women researchers who worked in various capacities during the initial establishment and data collection of Dr. Lewis Terman's classic longitudinal study of the "Genetic Studies of Genius."…

This paper provides an overview of telephone survey research by colleges and universities and reports on comparisons between mail survey respondents and non-respondents who were later contacted by telephone. After an introduction, the paper discusses the various steps of a telephone survey project. These include: (1) identifying the population to…

A study examined the feasibility of measuring employment in high-technology sectors at the regional level. First, the effect of definition of the term "high-technology" on survey results was considered along with potential effects of using 2- and 3-digit classifications of technology occupations from the Nomenclature of Economic…