This paper presents findings of a study that examined the extent to which children's mental health agencies can meet the information needs they consider to be most important and also comply with recommended standards of the Mental Health Statistics Improvement Projects (MHSIP). Three children's data sets representing three different agency…

An examination was made of Federal program statistics on vocational education during the past 10 years by the Bureau of Occupational and Adult Education of the U. S. Office of Education and the National Center for Education Statistics of the U. S. Department of Education. The study found that despite a mandate for reform, the National Center's…

Preliminary findings of this research effort provide support for the hypothesis that existing databases maintained by federal agencies for administrative or monitoring purposes can serve as useful data sources in special education policy research. The research explored the relationships among a number of state-level special education, fiscal, and…

Factors related to the contextual aspects of educational administrators' information needs were studied in a statewide survey of 199 administrators of adult and community education programs. Attention was directed to: varying preferences for different information sources, the effects of different decision or program development tasks on…

State program practices in norm-referenced testing (NRT) are described as found in the 1990-91 school year and prior years to provide information on years of administration of the same test and the age of the norms. All 50 State Departments of Education were surveyed in 2 stages. States without NRT were asked to described their testing policies;…

The papers presented at the symposium include: Student Loans: Some Practical Radical Alternatives (D. Bruce Johnstone); Solving the Student Loan Problem by Supplementing Government Loan Policy--An Expanded Role for Institutional Aid Administrators in the 1980's (Kurt L. Kendis); Estimating Manageable Educational Loan Limits for Graduate and…

Demographic and economic materials relevant to rural economic development are the focus of this description of the types of information that are collected by the U.S. Bureau of the Census and how this information can be accessed. Information provided on demographic materials includes collection methods--the census, surveys, and administrative…

Title III of the Higher Education Act of 1965, Strengthening Developing Institutions, is discussed in this presentation to the House Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education. The history of the Title from its inception is traced. Designed to strengthen the academic quality of financially weak institutions, Title III is viewed as a reflection of the…

This continuing education course syllabus presents information on the collection of vital and health statistics, lists of agencies or organizations involved in statistical collection and/or dissemination, annotated bibliographies of statistical sources, and guidelines for accessing statistical information. Topics covered include: (1) the reporting…

To identify the essential core of statistical data needed to plan improvements in library and information services in the United States, one must examine some recent trends in public administration methods and their potential applicability to the library field. Public administrators increasingly regard planning as a cycle: perception of needs,…

The Illinois project entitled Measurement and Evaluation of Public Library Services is being conducted by the Library Research Center (LRC) at the University of Illinois. The long range goal of the project is to make available meaningful information for the evaluation and improvement of local public libraries. Two immediate objectives are to test…

Many social workers are anxious about the use of evaluation techniques and are particularly reticent about using statistical research. Strategies for understanding the steps involved in integrating practice and evaluation in a school social work setting, an appreciation for the need of evaluation, and knowledge of various resources on conducting…

The function of a statistical map is to provide readers with a visual impression of the data so that they may be able to identify any geographic characteristics of the displayed phenomena. The increasingly important role played by the computer in the production of statistical maps is manifested by the varied examples of computer maps in recent…

Discussed are initiatives of the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families (ACYF) in the areas of Head Start, child care, the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, support of historically black colleges and universities, foster care and adoption assistance, the Runaway and Homeless Youth Program, and current and future plans. The…

This paper reviews UNESCO activities for the collection of national production data of audiovisual materials and microforms and presents possible approaches to the task. UNESCO has for some years collected data on the production of printed materials, but while recognizing the need for collecting similar statistics on nonprint media, it has not yet…