A study by Mullen and Tallent-Runnels (2006) found significance in the differences between online and traditional students' reports of instructors' academic support, instructors' demands, and students' satisfaction. They also recognized that the limitation to their study was their demographic data. In an original report funded by the Alfred P.…

The Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University conducted a large-scale analysis of the impact of charter schools on student performance. The center's data covered 65-70% of the nation's charter schools. Although results varied by state, 17% of the charter school students have significantly higher math results than …

"How New York City's Charter Schools Affect Achievement" estimates the effects on student achievement of attending a New York City charter school rather than a traditional public school and investigates the characteristics of charter schools associated with the most positive effects on achievement. Because the report relies on an…

In a desegregating school district in Springfield, Massachusetts, Black students who walked to a predominantly Black elementary school that they had attended for at least two years (and to which Whites were being bused) had higher achievement scores than Black students who were being bused to a predominantly White school. (MJL)

The effects of father absence on educational achievement and intellectual development of 6- to 11-year-old children were investigated by employing a nationally representative sample of 5,493 father-present and 616 father-absent children from the Health Examination Survey of the National Center for Health Statistics. (Author/RH)

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in its expansion of data reporting, should consider approaches for studying the curricular content of elementary and secondary instruction and student achievement of curricular goals. More specific information is needed about the curricular content of U.S. education. For example, data collected…

International comparisons of academic achievement are faulted by methodological problems. U.S. schools are doing better in international comparisons than we have been led to believe. However, there are shortcomings. An education reform agenda needs to treat poor urban and rural schools as patients in an intensive-care ward. (MLF)

Addresses two related problems: what are the appropriate measures for comparing effects of blocks or compounds of variables (each block conceived as having a single effect) when the causal ordering is assumed to be known, and how can single measures be created for each such block or compound, so that the comparisons can be made. (Author/JM)

Discusses the limitations of crossnational comparisons of secondary student performance in the U.S. and selected European and Pacific industrial countries, using mathematics and science data from the International Assessment for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). Suggests the most serious problem is the rise of a new educational…

A review of literature relevant to equal educational opportunity is presented in order to support an argument for the use of normative models in educational research. The literature review shows that confusion over the 1966 Coleman Report was due to a mismatch between the implied reform objective of the report and its statistical approach. The…

Project TALENT, a large scale, long range, longitudinal study, is designed primarily to provide insights into the characteristics and development of American adolescents. In order to compare trends in test results, a comprehensive battery of Psychological, educational, and personality measures were administered to participants in the 1960, 1970,…

Discussed are the assumptions which underpin research studies of the effects of pupil, school, and local education authority characteristics on student achievement in Great Britain. The purpose is to clarify the necessary limitations on knowledge imposed by various research methods and to suggest how these might be improved. (RM)

Describes a study of secondary school students in Nigeria to determine whether use of musical accompaniment on videotape recordings used in instruction of economic geography had any effects on students' learning. Results offer inconclusive differences in effect between video instruction accompanied by music and video instruction without music.…

There are a number of more meaningful ways of examining differences in achievement scores than by making comparisons, however complex, simply on the basis of national boundaries. Past methodological schemes may have been analytically convenient, but the results are hardly clear or convincing. (BRR)

Over 150 papers and articles were examined, and interviews with noted computer-based instruction (CBI) professionals were conducted to obtain information about CBI and the research evidence. Focus was on four main areas of CBI research--costs, learning achievements, individual differences, and student attitudes. Consistent empirical evidence did…