Short scales are time-efficient for participants and cost-effective in research. However, researchers often mistakenly expect short scales to have the same reliability as long ones without considering the effect of scale length. We argue that applying a universal benchmark for alpha is problematic as the impact of low-quality items is greater on…

The body of research in the field of postsecondary education and disability is wide ranging and continues to evolve. Specifically, the literature corpus includes contributions from a range of professions and a considerable number of journals. This breadth of diversity in perspective presents significant advantages; however, it also presents…

This chapter provides a guide to research logistics and ethics in studying immigrant families. The authors outline major pragmatic issues in research design and data collection to which all scholars must attend, although current practices often do not respond to the idiosyncratic issues related to vulnerable immigrant populations (e.g.,…

Purpose: The main aim of this paper is to develop guidelines on the critical issues to consider in research design in an action research (AR) environment for SME network capability development. Design/methodology/approach: The issues in research design for AR studies are developed from the authors' experience in running learning sets but, in…

Presents guidelines about how to conduct a public opinion poll and discusses such specific areas as the sample, the questionnaire, the interviewers, and the poll report. (DF)

A general guide to organizing and conducting reliable and useful community surveys is reported. Organization for the survey involves identifying and contacting relevant community groups, and meeting with organizational representatives. Constructing a questionnaire involves careful wording and ordering of questions, and determining if questions…

Developed to assist librarians in the measurement and evaluation of the library's ability to provide services, this guide suggests a number of evaluation techniques that may be used once the reasons for a study have been clearly determined and locally peculiar conditions have been taken into account. The first section explains methods for…

This is one of a series of eight short monographs intended to aid practicing educators in planning and conducting accountability programs in schools. This booklet discusses how to determine a sampling method that is appropriate to the objectives of a particular research or evaluation effort. Short sections focus in turn on why and when to sample,…

This study investigates the accuracy of the Woodruff-Causey technique for estimating sampling errors for complex statistics. The technique may be applied when data are collected by using multistage clustered samples. The technique was chosen for study because of its relevance to the correct use of multivariate analyses in educational survey…

Although single case studies might be useful to evaluators for a variety of purposes, there are no generally accepted ways for drawing inferences about the generality of findings from a case study. Single case studies are defined in this paper as either studies of single events, or disaggregated studies of multiple events. The data may be…

The specific objective of the research described in this report was to develop guidelines for decisionmaking by the Office of Manpower Utilization (OMU), Marine Corps Headquarters, in the selection of occupational field (OF) sample sizes to which task inventories will be administered. The report is designed to provide action-oriented answers to…

Describes the use of sample surveys in student affairs data collection. Discusses guidelines for planning, designing, and conducting research projects which employ survey methodology. Considers survey methodology, wording of questions, survey format, and sample size. (RC)

One solution to the problem of obtaining test scores in order to assess multiple outcomes of educational programs is a basically simple technique called matrix sampling. Matrix sampling is the estimation of total test score statistics by administering random subsets of test items to randomly selected students. This chapter lays out the specific…

Guidelines for the implementation of qualitative methods in special education research are offered, addressing rigor, sample selection, data collection, and data management/analysis. Five possible pitfalls are identified, including the quantitative-qualitative methods debate, premature data collection, the tendency to use a linear procedural…

The purpose of this handbook is to document a procedure for obtaining information about the interest of people for additional job training. (The procedure will result in a set of tables providing information on interest in job training for use in planning educational programs. It is designed to be flexible enough for use in areas as small as…