This study investigated the delayed effects of LOGO programing on the cognitive abilities and achievement of children in the primary grades. Results of tests administered 18 months after first graders participated in either LOGO computer programing or computer-assisted instruction treatments and interviews five months after testing are reported…

Wisconsin's guaranteed tax base equalization formula has no direct adjustment for the additional costs of educating poverty level pupils. This paper establishes the need for an adjustment and examines three measures (based on varying poverty definitions) to determine which provides the most equitable funding formula for educating poor children. (9…

Survey of Ohio State University faculty members and administrators examines their attitudes and perceptions regarding need for, and potential use of, a computerized database to increase efficiency of graduate school administration, and to collect and generate data for academic departments' use in improving programs. Proposed database design is…

This study sought to call attention to the rather massive increases in the enrollment of new degree-seeking students that have occurred at the University of South Florida (USF) in recent years. Over a four-year period (1997-98 to 2001-02), USF, a large multi-campus metropolitan university in Tampa, Florida, saw the number of annual new…

Asserts that traditional approaches to multivariate analysis, including standard linear regression techniques, ignore the special character of count data. Explicates three suitable alternatives to standard regression techniques, a simple Poisson regression, a modified Poisson regression, and a negative binomial model. (MJP)

"Safe, Healthy and Ready to Succeed: Arizona School Readiness Key Performance Indicators" presents a set of baseline measurements that gauge how well a statewide system of school readiness supports is addressing issues that affect Arizona children's readiness for school. The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) measure the system, rather…

How do students react to being told that they have failed a test required for high school graduation? In 2000, 7,989 students were wrongly informed that they had failed the Minnesota Basic Standards Test in mathematics. The authors conducted a survey of 911 of these students to assess the psychosocial impact of this event. More than 80% of…

Traditionally, correlation coefficients have been used to validate course placement decisions based on test scores and high school grades. Because placement systems restrict the range of both the predictor and outcome variables, correlation coefficients based on data from students enrolled in particular courses are understated relative to what…

The effectiveness of an optimal item selection method in designing parallel test forms was studied during the development of two forms that were parallel to an existing form for each of three language arts tests for fourth graders used in the Connecticut Mastery Test. Two listening comprehension forms, two reading comprehension forms, and two…

Performance assessments in education and credentialing are becoming popular. At the same time, there do not exist any well established and validated methods for setting standards on performance assessments. This paper describes several of the new standard-setting methods that are emerging for use with performance assessments and considers their…

The adequacy of several approaches to estimation of proficiency distributions for the Trial State Assessment (TSA) in eighth grade mathematics of the National Assessment of Educational Progress was examined. These approaches are more restrictive than the estimation procedures originally used, with the same kind of plausible-values approach that…

This document comprises the following tables of statistical data illustrating the racial/ethnic distribution of public school students and staff in New York State during the 1988/89 school year: (1) racial/ethnic distribution of students; (2) distribution of Black and Hispanic students; (3) percent distribution of students by racial/ethnic origin,…

A procedure which may be used to project the frequency distribution of one test onto that of another test is described and illustrated. The procedure is useful when a test developer wishes to construct an alternate form with preferred distributional characteristics. For example, the test developer may wish to construct a new test form with a…

In this fact sheet, data is reported from the IEA Civic Education Study -- a two-phased study of 14- and 17-year olds' civic knowledge, attitudes and activities conducted in 29 countries in 1999 and 2000 with nationally representative samples of students. The information from this study is used to address three main points concerning the media and…

Unprecedented attention has gone to researching young voters, and yet one segment of this age group has been largely ignored: non-college (or "working") youth. Because very little is known about them, the following paper advances three fundamental concerns: What types of political activities do young workers engage in? What can be learned about…