With businesses struggling for resources during economic downturns, traditional business student internships were becoming more difficult to develop. One business school extended its experiential learning opportunities with specific management projects in community small business, healthcare, education, and non-profit organizations. The on-campus…

Drawing conclusions from the comparison of datasets using informal statistical inference is a challenging task since the nature and type of reasoning expected is not fully understood. In this paper a secondary teacher's reasoning from the comparison of box plot distributions during the teaching of a Year 11 (15-year-old) class is analyzed. From…

This report examines how immigrant students performed, mainly in mathematics and reading, but also in science and problem-solving skills in the PISA 2003 assessment, both in comparison with native students in their adopted country and relative to other students across all countries covered in the report (the "case countries"). In…

Advances in computer technology are making it possible for educational researchers to use simpler statistical methods to address a wide range of questions with smaller data sets and fewer, and less restrictive, assumptions. This digest introduces computationally intensive statistics, collectively called resampling techniques. Resampling is a…

Tables for testing clinical hypotheses about counseling clients are presented, and their use is described. Primary uses are determining a critical value or cutoff score on a predictor that can be used to classify an individual as a member of a clinical group, and instructing those unfamiliar with the limitations of tests about the conditions under…

Standards, passing scores, or cut scores have been seen as an element of criterion-referenced tests since their introduction. This paper discusses at least two issues surrounding the establishment of cut scores which appear to need clarification: (1) the theoretical definition of a cut score; and (2) decisions which must be made in selecting a…

The sampling errors of maximum likelihood estimates of item-response theory parameters are studied in the case where both people and item parameters are estimated simultaneously. A check on the validity of the standard error formulas is carried out. The effect of varying sample size, test length, and the shape of the ability distribution is…

This report provides statistics on employment, evaluation, and training practices and procedures of American public school substitute teachers. A questionnaire was mailed to the directors of substitute teachers in 401 randomly selected school districts. Usable information was returned by 259 school systems (64.6 percent) in 49 states and the…

Based on the assumption that librarians can benefit from a better knowledge and understanding of information needs and behavior, this paper presents a review of the literature on information needs and information seeking behavior from 1971 to 1986, a report on a survey of 100 graduate students enrolled in a course on educational research at…

The combined field tests for the third follow-up survey of High School and Beyond (HSB) and the fifth follow-up survey of the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 (NLS-72) were conducted during the spring of 1985. The overall purposes of the field tests were to evaluate questionnaires and procedures to be used for the…

The focus of this study is on the estimation procedures implemented in BILOG, a computer program. One purpose is to compare the item parameter estimates produced by various procedures available in BILOG. Four different models are used: the one, two, and three parameter model and a three parameter model with common guessing parameters. The results…

This publication reports findings, primarily in tabular form, of the 1981 Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) survey of salaries and personnel issues. The study was conducted with the voluntary member agencies of the CWLA. Survey forms were sent to 210 voluntary accredited and provisional members of the CWLA and to 17 agencies that are members…

The Massachusetts "Day Care Consumer Profile" describes the consumers of publicly subsidized day care in the Department of Social Services' Day Care Program. The Department of Social Services which is the Title XX Agency in Massachusetts, serves over 13,000 children across the state in contracted day care programs. The…

Describes the development and testing of the Bath County Computer Attitudes Scale (BCCAS), which is designed to measure elementary and secondary school students' attitudes toward computers. Preliminary and revised versions are reviewed, and a analysis of data supports the validity of the BCCAS as a measure of computer attitudes. (Author/LRW)

Explains the use of contingency tables as a tool in assessing variables to determine whether a relationship exists. Develops an example hypothesis step-by-step, noting the scientific processes and attitudes being addressed. Cautions that a large difference, which suggests a relationship, is not explanation since correlation does not guarantee…