States have made tremendous progress in developing longitudinal data systems that can track student progress and answer critical policy questions. However, more work is needed, particularly on certain elements. Data on course-taking and grades (element 6), college readiness test scores (element 7), and other feedback from post-secondary…

The United States Department of Education's (the Department's) "Agency Financial Report" (AFR) for fiscal year (FY) 2012 provides an overview of the Department's financial performance and results and detailed information about the Department's stewardship over the financial resources entrusted to it. Additionally, as required by the…

Since the publication of McREL's "2003 Annual Report," McREL staff members wrote more than 100 published articles in practitioner and peer-reviewed journals describing what they know from four decades of research on effective schools as well as years of practical experience working to help educators raise student performance: that…

The creation of an effective learning environment requires cultural competency--the ability to interact effectively with people of different cultures. Cultural competency means knowing and understanding the people that you serve. This study compares American and Chinese student's readiness and willingness to use innovative technology by assessing…

We describe a training program to teach applied behavior analysis (ABA) knowledge competencies to paraprofessional staff (N = 47) at a habilitation services agency for adults with developmental disabilities. Before and following training, staff completed assessment of knowledge tests for three content areas: basic learning principles,…

Popular culture today characterizes middle-class parents as being consumed with anxiety about their children. Drawing on more than 100 consumer reviews of baby monitors published on Epinions.com, the author examines how parents respond to that anxiety. Although Epinions.com reviewers are not representative of the population at large, they do…

This book is a guide to categorizing, measuring, testing, and assessing aspects of language, and is intended for language teachers, speech therapists and other language-related practitioners, and researchers, in conjunction with other resources on research methods and statistics. The first part is a discussion of basic terminology and the varied…

Recent calls for high standards and hard content for all students have brought a growing interest in Opportunity-To-Learn (OTL) measures. OTL indicators provide valuable information for anyone interested in knowing what instruction is like, whether it is equitably distributed, and whether it is improving over time. This paper describes an effort…

In a study on public television viewing, data taken from KQED San Francisco (California) revealed that the pattern of "cume build-up" and viewing to program genres was absolutely similar in non-pledge and pledge months. The percentage of audience that watched 7 or more other pledge programs was well over 50% for many of the shows. These…

This paper describes a project implemented in two classrooms at the University of Wyoming's College of Education laboratory school. Forty-four students in the second and third grade participated. The "In Search of Bicycles" project asked students to consider how technology is used and how it affects the environment. Students then began…

Norm-referenced tests yield information regarding a student's performance in comparison to a norm or average of performance by similar students. Norms are statistics that describe the test performance of a well-defined population. The process of constructing norms, called norming, is explored briefly in this paper. Some of the most widely reported…

This paper proposes a model to establish which criteria are considered by stakeholders as valid for evaluating a program. The model is developed with the aim of increasing the credibility and use of evaluations. Stakeholders are involved in the identification of potential evaluation criteria, and ratings of validity and priority are used as the…

This book offers a comprehensive guide to evaluation as applied to management development. Part I (Chapters 1-2) discusses the following: what management is; the role of training, development, and education of managers; the purposes of evaluation (proving, improving, learning, controlling); and approaches to evaluation. Part II (Chapters 3-6)…

An approach to research that was conceptualized with the idea of replicating one study in dozens of locations simultaneously is described, focusing on two research projects with simultaneous replication. In 1988 researchers in 85 locations collected data in 276 schools as part of the Phi Delta Kappa Study of Schools At Risk. In 1982, data were…

This guide is intended for use by teachers and administrators in elementary and secondary education school systems to help them evaluate their school programs. It provides basic program evaluation principles to aid educators in planning and conducting evaluations of school programs. The guide explores the five tasks of school program evaluation.…