The 1996 National Household Education Survey (NHES:96) was a random digit dial telephone survey of households that was developed by the National Center for Education Statistics and conducted by Westat, Inc. The NHES:96 included two topical survey components, "Parent and Family Involvement in Education," (PFI) which collected data about…

Language teachers with little or no experience in conducting research are guided through the process of deciding what kind of classroom research to undertake, and how to organize and implement it. In question-and-answer format, four types of research are defined and explained separately: action, survey, correlational, and experimental studies. For…

This report evaluates how effectively four federally funded bilingual education block grant programs--Program Development and Implementation Grants, Program Enhancement Projects, Comprehensive School Grants, Systemwide Improvement Grants--used $163 million in fiscal year 2000 to serve children with limited English proficiency (LEP). There are four…

This volume documents the data collection of the 1990-91 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). People wishing to determine whether their research needs can be served by SASS data will find a description of the survey's contents and objectives in the Overview. This volume contains the following chapters: (1) "Overview"; (2) "Changes in…

This paper presents principles that should be considered in planning and interpreting studies of outcomes of interventions with children receiving mental health services. Principles to consider when planning outcome studies include recognizing that "outcome" refers to multiple rather than single domains and choosing outcome domains that…

These two newsletters for 1997 highlight the following topics and issues. The July issue reports that community and technical colleges are moving to performance funding as a result of the 1997 Washington state legislature including a performance evaluation proviso for all public higher education institutions. Another article is featured on data…

This research is mainly concerned with the costs of computers in schools in developing countries. It starts with a brief overview of the information revolution and its consequences. It then briefly examines some of the arguments for the use of computers in schools in developing countries, before reviewing previous work undertaken on the costs of…

This brief paper defines participatory action research, reviews the literature on its use, and offers examples of how researchers and practitioners are applying principles of participatory action research data to select effective practices and support change and innovation in schools. Generation of data-based strategies in natural environments is…

This study examined the continued relevance and adequacy of the Elementary and Secondary School Civil Rights Compliance Report (E&S Survey) as a tool for enforcing civil rights laws in education, monitoring quality of access to learning opportunities, and research on other current issues of educational policy and practice. The Committee on…

A 1994 report, "Quality Profile for SASS, Aspects of the Quality of Data in the Schools and Staffing Surveys (SASS)," presented and summarized the available information about the quality of the data from the five surveys that made up the SASS in its first two rounds of data collection (1987-1988 and 1990-1991). This report updates the…

This paper reviews and evaluates methods for conducting job analysis. The paper begins with a discussion of the purpose of licensure and certification and the dimensions of job analysis. The following four dimensions along which job analysis methods vary are discussed: types of job descriptors; sources of information; data collection methods; and…

This study developed a statistical model to identify college students most prone to dropping out, testing the model to predict the retention status of black residential and white commuter students at an historically black institution with an open admissions policy. The model used 25 pre- and early-matriculation variables, including gender, age,…

New Hampshire has adopted a standards-based statewide assessment, the New Hampshire Educational Improvement and Assessment Program (NHEIAP), which is designed to measure students' learning against proficiency standards at grades 3, 6, and 10. Because of the difficulty teachers had in interpreting the NHEIAP results, a custom-designed software…

This book is an easy-to-use guide for school boards in how to use data intelligently when evaluating student achievement, educational improvement, and school accountability. Its purpose is to encourage school boards to use data as a basis for their decision-making instead of speculation, perception, or limited observation. Board members can learn…

This monograph summarizes national and state level changes in employment patterns for individuals with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities. It presents longitudinal data from state mental retardation/developmental disability (MR/DD) agencies covering 8 years between FY88 and FY96, and for federal/state vocational rehabilitation…