Peter Dunn and Margaret Marshman present the second of their data files articles in which they discuss the statistical investigation cycle which describes the whole process of conducting a statistical research study. [For "The Data Files: A Series of Articles to Support Mathematics Teachers to Teach Statistics," see EJ1259108.]

Since 1973, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has gathered information about student achievement in mathematics. Results of these periodic assessments, produced in print and web-based formats, provide valuable information to a wide variety of audiences. They inform citizens about the nature of students' comprehension of the…

In recent years, schools (as well as universities) have added cyber security to their computer science curricula. This topic is still new for most of the current teachers, who would normally have a standard computer science background. Therefore the teachers are trained and then teaching their students what they have just learned. In order to…

Typically, achievement gaps between groups of students are measured as either differences in average scores or differences in proficiency rates. But, practitioners, policymakers, and researchers have long recognized that these approaches don't tell the whole story. Average scores, for example, are good at summarizing trends but can mask real…

In response to frequent news media reports about how poorly American students fare compared with their peers abroad, Daniel Koretz takes a close look at what these comparisons say, and do not say, about the achievement of U.S. high school students. He stresses that the comparisons do not provide what many observers of education would like:…

This report uses NAEP background data to track time and learning since the mid-1990s in three areas: student absenteeism; classroom instructional time in mathematics, reading, music and the visual arts; and homework time expected by teachers. Key report findings are: (1) Students with higher rates of "monthly absenteeism" score…

In 1988, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) introduced a proposal to develop a private school data collection that would improve on the sporadic collection of private school data dating back to 1890 and improve on commercially available private school sampling frames. Since 1989, the U.S. Bureau of the Census has conducted the…

This study is a secondary analysis of data from the 1995 administration of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). The purpose is to compare the breadth, depth, and recurrence of the typical physics curriculum in the United States with the typical curricula in different countries and to determine whether there are…

This report presents results of the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in reading and mathematics at grade 12. Results for students in the nation and, for the first time, in the 11 states that volunteered to participate in the 2009 state pilot program are reported as average scores and as percentages of students performing at…

A study made to identify the critical educational needs of the State of North Dakota is presented in the six chapters of this report and its appendixes. Chapter I, Introduction, discusses historical considerations and provides an overview of the report. Chapter II contains a comprehensive but concise description of the technical procedures…

In 2001, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) conducted a geography assessment of the nation's fourth-, eighth-, and twelfth-grade students. This report presents the results of that assessment. Results in 2001 are compared to results of 1994's NAEP geography assessment, which was the preceding NAEP geography assessment and the…

The purpose of this study was to determine the measurement comparability of paper-and-pencil and multimedia versions of two career assessment components in the DISCOVER multimedia career and education planning system. Students in grade 9 (N=606) and 11 (N=416) completed paper-and-pencil and Compact Disc-interactive (CD-i) versions of the Unisex…

Monitoring the Future (MTF), now in its 35th year, has become one of the nation's most relied-upon sources of information on changes taking place in licit and illicit psychoactive drug use among American adolescents, college students, young adults, and more recently, middle-aged adults. During the last three and a half decades, the study has…

A battery of objective examinations administered to Grade 12 students in Toronto and Ontario consisted of tests designated as Scholastic Aptitude Test (Verbal and Mathematics Sections), World History, Economics, Algebra, and Latin. Norms were prepared on the tests for each of three groups of students: General, Technical, and Commercial. The tests…

Significant differences were found on the aesthetic, intellectual and material values scales but not on the humanitarian, power, and religious scales. (Author)