Education researchers, practitioners, and policymakers alike are committed to identifying interventions that teach students more effectively. Increased emphasis on evaluation and accountability has increased desire for sound evaluations of these interventions; and at the same time, school-level data have become increasingly available. This article…

This meta-analysis summarizes teaching effectiveness studies of the past decade and investigates the role of theory and research design in disentangling results. Compared to past analyses based on the process-product model, a framework based on cognitive models of teaching and learning proved useful in analyzing studies and accounting for…

Background/Context: Although prior research shows that the nature and extent of private tutoring practices vary significantly from country to country, differences between Eastern and Western countries in terms of their cultural and institutional aspects of private tutoring choice have not been closely examined. We need to bridge the gap by…

Background/Context: In recent years, state legislatures, state education departments, and advocacy groups in over 30 states have sponsored education adequacy studies, which aim to determine objectively the amount of funding needed to provide all students a meaningful opportunity for an adequate education. Not surprisingly, because of their growing…

Rigorous research provides information that will allow other schools and districts to select interventions that have a scientifically based track record of effectiveness. All Striving Reader grants include the mandate to evaluate literacy intervention(s) targeted to adolescents who are reading significantly below grade level. Although all studies…

This report presents the findings of the annual evaluation of the Even Start Family Literacy program conducted during the 1989-1990 program year. Chapter 1 of the report describes the nature and purpose of Even Start, a 4-year national effort intended to improve the educational opportunities of children and adults by integrating early childhood…

The 307 schools funded by the Ohio Venture Capital program were the focus of a study on teacher empowerment. This paper focuses on the method used to maximize survey responses, rather than on the study findings. Data were sought from the building principals and 10,544 classroom teachers to create a "total picture" of the individual…

Seven Oaks School, a high school in Winnipeg (Canada) recently conducted a followup study of its graduates using a unique approach. High school seniors helped develop the structured interview instrument and carried out the research. As it gathered important information to help the school district in its planning, the study provided students with…

This paper describes two culturally-sensitive longitudinal studies of normal development of Puerto Rican adolescents and children growing up in the United States. A number of areas pertinent to Puerto Ricans and other minorities that have previously been neglected are studied. Both projects are grounded in a cultural-ecological approach in which…

Abuses and misuses of statistics are frequent. This digest attempts to warn against these in three broad classes of pitfalls: sources of bias, errors of methodology, and misinterpretation of results. Sources of bias are conditions or circumstances that affect the external validity of statistical results. In order for a researcher to make…

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an instrument to assess students' culturally sensitive environments and to examine the associations between these factors and students' attitudes towards science. A measure of students' environment, namely, the Cultural Learning Environment Questionnaire (CLEQ), was developed. The instrument…

This manual has been produced to familiarize data users with the procedures followed for data collection and processing of the second follow-up school component of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) and to provide the necessary documentation for use of the data file. Chapter 1 contains an overview and the history of the…

This document is a summary and evaluation of methodological procedures and results for the field test of the Beginning Postsecondary Student Longitudinal Study Second Followup, 1990-94 (BPS:90/94). The BPS study is a departure from previous studies in that it starts with a cohort of individuals as they enter their postsecondary studies regardless…

This manual familiarizes data users with the procedures followed for data collection and processing of the second follow-up student component of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), with the corollary objective of providing necessary documentation for use of the data file. Chapter 1 presents an overview and history of the…

This manual familiarizes data users with the procedures followed for data collection and processing of the second follow-up dropout component of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), a survey of the educational and personal characteristics of students. The dropout data file contains records for 2,028 sample members who…