The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE), a unit within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), is responsible for advising the Assistant Secretary for Children and Families on increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of programs to improve the economic and social well-being of children and families. In collaboration…

The Study of Monitoring and Improvement Practices under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) examined how states monitored the implementation of IDEA by local special education and early intervention services programs. State monitoring and improvement practices in 2004-05 and 2006-07 were the focus of the study. Prior to the…

In this essay, the author tries to look forward into the 21st century to divine three things: (i) What skills will researchers in the future need to solve the most pressing problems? (ii) What are some of the most likely candidates to be those problems? and (iii) What are some current areas of research that seem mined out and should not distract…

Schools are complex institutions in which change occurs almost constantly. As each new piece of information is learned, the learner is changed, never to return to the same state they were prior to the act of learning, (Morrison, 2002). This study investigates the impact of interdisciplinary lesson study on teachers' instructional decisions and…

For the purposes of measurement such as aggregation, improvement, diagnosis, assessment, evaluation, reporting, and research; constructs must be measured and not just observed, counted, or collected. Valid and reliable measurement includes a defined construct, a choice of appropriate models, creation of instruments, and meaningful results. In…

This article presents new methods for modeling the strength of association between multiple behaviors in a behavioral sequence, particularly those involving substantively important interaction patterns. Modeling and identifying such interaction patterns becomes more complex when behaviors are assigned to more than two categories, as is the case…

Despite their apparent popularity among those seeking degrees and credentials, today's colleges and universities face several interrelated public criticisms and concerns. When these competing concerns about student success, productivity, cost, and educational effectiveness all collide at the campus level, they create an array of campus tensions…

This technical report, produced in partnership by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and SPSS Inc., explores the promise of data mining alumni records at educational institutions. Working with individual alumni records from The Johns Hopkins Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, a predictive regression model is…

In a rural community there is a risk that readers will not find connections to their own lives, which may affect the pleasure gained from reading. The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine the use of literature in a small rural elementary school, focusing on how sociocultural factors affect how students connect to and access literature.…

In this paper, we present a data-based user modeling framework that uses both unsupervised and supervised classification to build student models for exploratory learning environments. We apply the framework to build student models for two different learning environments and using two different data sources (logged interface and eye-tracking data).…

Examines current trends in data collection and information use in human services organizations. Describes issues for managers who are planning information systems, including practitioner resistance to automation. Proposes that conceptual integration of agendas for human services automation, practice evaluation, and service effectiveness enables…

Using the evaluation work on the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Unleashing Resources Initiative as an example, in this article we explicate a general four-step model appropriate for multilevel evaluation alignment. We review the relevant literature, argue for the need for evaluation alignment in a multilevel context, explain the four-step model,…

This article demonstrates the use of mixed-effects logistic regression (MLR) for conducting sequential analyses of binary observational data. MLR is a special case of the mixed-effects logit modeling framework, which may be applied to multicategorical observational data. The MLR approach is motivated in part by G. A. Dagne, G. W. Howe, C. H.…

This chapter presents a sophisticated approach for tracking student cohorts from entry through departure within an institution. It describes how a researcher can create a student tracking model to perform longitudinal research on student cohorts. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

Parental involvement comes in various forms and will differ as a child moves through primary and secondary school. Epstein's (2002) classic six-types model captures the potential scope of parental involvement: (1) basic obligations of parents as care-providers; (2) schools communicating with parents about school programs; (3) parent volunteering…