Spurred by federal and state mandates for improved performance, school districts across the country have become adept at establishing districtwide goals to raise student achievement. They have identified learning gaps among various student populations and now seek to close them. They have targeted improved performance in reading or math by grade…

The National Science Education Standards encourage teachers to approach their teaching in a spirit of inquiry--assessing, reflecting on, and learning from their own practice. In this article, the authors draw from their own experiences as science teacher-researchers and present practical guidelines for science teachers who want to learn more about…

The American Evaluation Association's (AEA) Independent Consulting Topical Interest Group (IC TIG) has a membership of over eight hundred individuals who generally work as sole proprietors, in partnerships, or in small consulting firms. Well over a decade ago, the IC TIG conducted a survey of its membership (Bonnet, 1992). To gather current data…

The Community College Survey of Student Engagement ("CCSSE") this year celebrates five years of helping community colleges better serve their students. With its unrelenting focus on using data to improve students' educational experiences, "CCSSE" has established itself as a leading voice in community college improvement efforts. More important,…

The Community College Survey of Student Engagement ("CCSSE") this year celebrates five years of helping community colleges better serve their students. With its unrelenting focus on using data to improve students' educational experiences, "CCSSE" has established itself as a leading voice in community college improvement efforts. More important,…

The National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities (NDPC-SD) was assigned the task of summarizing and analyzing the data for Indicator 2--Dropout--from the 2005-06 Annual Performance Reports (APRs) and the revised State Performance Plans (SPPs), which were submitted to the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) in February…

The employment records of a large northeastern manufacturing plant were analyzed to test the opportunity for career advancement within a large-scale industrial establishment. The employment records analyzed covered the years 1921 through 1937 and more than 28,000 different employees (male and female). The company was selected as being…

This is a report evaluating the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS), which is designed to track federal student financial aid (Title IV) programs and provide research and support functions such as prescreening of aid applicants for eligibility and enrollment status. The report finds that the Department of Education has made only limited…

State activities to collect information on program outcomes for students enrolled in postsecondary vocational education were examined in spring 1990. A multistage process, beginning with a review of state reports and legislation, was followed by telephone interviews with state officials. The average number of respondents per state was five.…

This report presents the detailed results of the compilation of an overview of state activities related to measuring the outcomes of postsecondary vocational education. Chapter I provides background to the study. Chapter II describes the methodology used for the development of the overview, including discussions with experts, the information…

Complete with student worksheets, field trip ideas, illustrations, vocabulary lists, suggested materials, and step-by-step procedures, the document presents a compilation of ideas for teaching elementary school (K-6) students about marine and fresh water. In the first unit students build miniature monuments and observe the deterioration of…

Student behavior analysis is an active research topic in distance education in recent years. In this article, we propose a new method called Boosting to investigate students' behaviors. The Boosting Algorithm can be treated as a data mining method, trying to infer from a large amount of training data the essential factors and their relations that…

This document is the users' guide for Version 1.0 of the Public-Use data tapes compiled by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 1985-86. The Public-Use tapes are produced to allow outside researchers access to the NAEP data. The tapes accompanying this guide, one for grade 3/age 9, one for grade 7/age 13, and one for grade…

Designed to identify exemplary strategies and procedures for assessing employer satisfaction with former vocational education students' training and job performance, this handbook provides ideas for initiating such an assessment and for improving upon current assessment practices. It consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the…

This volume contains the appendices to a study to determine which patterns of classroom interaction and student characteristics were related to students' acquisition of oral proficiency in English. Participants were the English as a second language teachers and students at the West New York (New Jersey) Adult Learning Center. Student measures, a…