This paper reviews previous research on school finance reform in Illinois and examines the impact of various types of finance reform on suburban school districts as compared to urban and rural districts. The paper is divided into two parts. Part 1 reviews data from three previous annual evaluations of the results of the Illinois school finance…

The pretest-posttest design referred to as Design 2 by Campbell and Stanley (1963) is commonly used in educational research and evaluation. The tenability of the assumption of a zero population difference commonly used with this design is questioned. A nonzero population estimate based on the mean difference observed in test-retest reliability…

Discusses the empirical analysis of experimental and non-experimental foreign language teaching methods and materials, based on the view of the teaching/learning process as a set of causative relationships among psychological, linguistic, and educational phenomena. (AM)

Data collected by the Appalachia Educational Laboratory (AEL) in its 1980 Needs Assessment Project was reduced to eight marker variables for use in subsequent individual state factor analyses. These variables concern (1) high need family situations; (2) effective career education/guidance; (3) increased school capacity for working with families;…

This final volume in a series of seven describes the methodologies used in a study of four federal programs in 57 school districts across the country. In order to accomplish the study's objectives, two types of substudies were implemented--a federal programs survey and the individual site studies. The federal programs survey data were collected…

To relate the design of open education programs to their outcomes, the authors surveyed 72 research studies on the effects of open education and examined the methods and findings of three previous literature surveys on this topic. The 72 studies were divided by an objective statistical test into those showing large effects of open education and…

This report is arranged to display and explain the work of the Evaluation Design Project staff during the 1980-81 grant year. The intent of the entire project is to examine existing district policies, procedures and programs that appear to contribute to systematic use of evaluation and testing for educational improvement, and to make…

Information on why readership surveys are valuable and on how to conduct them is presented, along with sample surveys used at a number of different institutions, and a questionnaire used by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education to measure the opinion of "CASE CURRENTS," readers. Guidelines for doing a mail survey outline…

This document reports the pilot test of the two components of the Child and Family Mental Health (CFMH) Evaluation Project -- the impact evaluation component and the in-depth evaluation component. (The impact evaluation is designed to determine the effects of the two primary prevention models of service and activities on the CFMH Head Start…

A detailed description is provided of the variable, intraorganizational structure (IOS), which is part of the analysis in phase I of the Evaluation of Practices in Individualized Schooling. The variable is defined; the questionnaires on which the variable is based are listed; the procedures used to scale the variable are explained; the…

Described in this paper is one state's approach to the development and operation of a Research Coordinating Unit (RCU), which is designed to orchestrate research and development activities in vocational education within a state. This approach, based on Illinois's model, depicts program improvement as a continuous process involving such activities…

The primary sample for Year 11 of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) was selected in March 1979, and was preceded by an 18-month planning effort. During the planning period, research concentrated in five specific areas: sampling frame construction, stratification criteria, efficiency study review, techniques and computer…

In order to assess the methodological merit of the published research in educational administration based on surveys, the authors analyzed data from a random sample of 24 survey studies published in the "Education Administration Quarterly" and the "Journal of Educational Administration." Each article was evaluated according to…

The purpose of this paper is to outline theory and methods associated with a research strategy for identifying elements of cultural congruence or incogruence in classroom speech events. The hypothesis of "sociolinguistic interference" proposed by D. Hymes is discussed and studies of language education of Hawaiians and other minorities…

Techniques and procedures for conducting graduate follow-up surveys are summarized. Initial considerations include: survey objectives, standardization of questions, differentiating follow-ups from alumni campaigns, those who need the information, those who have responsibility for the survey, and various populations to be surveyed. Specific issues…