A Texas district shows what can be done when school-based staff developers work with teachers dedicated to improvement--student achievement improves in just one year. The author points out the factors that helped make it work and offers tips for traps to avoid. (Contains 10 charts.)

The NAEP Validity Studies (NVS) Panel provides advice and recommendations to help insure the "validity" of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test scores. The primary objectives of NAEP tests are to accurately monitor the progress of defined groups of students over time and to measure valid differences in scores…

This study assesses the extent of residential segregation among 15,246 people diagnosed with psychiatric disabilities and receiving Medicaid (MA) in Philadelphia, and an identically sized group of MA recipients serving as matched controls. Results indicate that overall levels of residential segregation among this group were modest at their most…

Global economic transformations have never been as dramatic as in the twentieth century. Most countries have experienced radical changes in the standards of income per capita, technology, fertility, mortality, income inequality and the extent of democracy in the course of the past century. It is the goal of many disciplines--economics, history,…

Hierarchical Bayes procedures were compared for estimating item and ability parameters in item response theory. Simulated data sets from the two-parameter logistic model were analyzed using three different hierarchical Bayes procedures: (1) the joint Bayesian with known hyperparameters (JB1); (2) the joint Bayesian with information hyperpriors…

Three methods of estimating test score distributions that may improve on using the observed frequencies (OBFs) as estimates of a population test score distribution are considered: the kernel method (KM); the polynomial method (PM); and the four-parameter beta binomial method (FPBBM). The assumption each method makes about the smoothness of the…

The assessment of individual or community nutritional status involves the use of indicators; when properly analyzed and interpreted, these may be used to decide what strategies to implement, or how to orient activities aimed at improving nutritional status. In primary health care programs, one approach which remains underused involves obtaining…

Attitude measures frequently produce distributions of item scores that attenuate interitem correlations and thus also distort findings regarding the factor structure underlying the items. An actual data set involving 260 adult subjects' responses to 55 items on the Love Relationships Scale is employed to illustrate empirical methods for…

This investigation of information seeking behavior focuses on three behaviors: (1) how people gather information in academic or work environments; (2) the sources they use; and (3) how their behavior relates to the library and its resources. This paper provides a review of the literature on information seeking from 1981 to 1986, a report on a…

The main purposes of this study were to ascertain something of the quality of in-house use of materials in a science library, and to test the use of interviews as a method of measuring such use. Brief interviews were held with 414 users of the University of Illinois Veterinary Medicine Library (VML) between March 2 and May 13, 1987, to obtain…

An extensive comparative analysis of dysfunctional sentences found in the writing of prefreshmen at Bowling Green State University (Ohio) was conducted to examine and to describe possible differences in dysfunctional sentences produced by remedial and nonremedial writers. Writing samples consisted of randomly selected freshman placement…

Educational research, unfortunately, often focuses on finding statistical differences between overall means or averages. Media reports of research routinely present those differences and little else. This paper discusses the importance of considering the spread of the data in addition to the center and how this is relevant to research focused on…

This report is based on final data obtained from several federal surveys including the U.S. Department of Education's Survey of Degrees and Other Formal Awards Conferred, the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Systems (IPEDS) Completions Survey, and the Survey of Earned Doctorates, the last of which is conducted annually for the National…

Data from the College Board Validity Study Service show that the average multiple correlation of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) with college grades peaked in 1974 and then tended to decline. Data from other sources also estimate a small average decline from 1974 to 1985. This study documented changes in the SAT and related these changes to…

A study of the effects of television drama on learning of prosocial and antisocial behavior analyzes programs in terms of sex of the actor, apparent motivation for the actor's behavior, and portrayed importance of the action. Results show that the effects on viewers differ according to their sex. (EAO)