Several developments growing out of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are reviewed, with a discussion of their extension and application to other projects. These developments include: (1) complex matrix item sampling designs; (2) performance-based items in large-scale assessments; (3) vertical scaling; and (4) innovative…

This commentary on EC 605 442, which indicated long-term gains for children with autism who experienced intensive behavioral intervention as preschoolers, emphasizes the need for replication. The replication study should use random assignment to experimental and control groups, a larger sample of cases, standard diagnostic instruments to delineate…

Over a period of 10 years, we have developed a sustainable process of online portfolio assessment that demonstrates both reliability and validity, using both qualitative and quantitative measures. The sustainable cycle is that, each semester, we assess a random sampling of the students' work that they have posted, as per our instructions, in an…

The Maryland Gun Violence Act, enacted into law in 1996, explicitly authorized courts to order batterers to surrender their firearms through civil protective orders. It also vested law enforcement with the explicit authority to remove guns when responding to a domestic violence complaint. In order to assess how these laws were implemented, we…

Approximately 30% of children in foster care have severe emotional, behavioral, or developmental problems. A systematic research synthesis of empirical studies was conducted in an attempt to identify and classify therapeutic interventions for foster children. Utilizing a treatment protocol classification system, empirical studies were classified…

The study sought to investigate how pre school teachers and their pupils interact during instruction in numeracy lessons in Nigeria. The sample consisted of 2859 pupils from 72 pre-primary institutions/classrooms (selected through stratified random sampling to ensure adequate representation of private, public, urban and rural schools). The…

In order to build a knowledge-based society and meet the needs of lifelong education, open learning opportunities are growing at exponential rates. While such growth is commendable, there appears to be a very strong demand for distance guidance services in open education programme selection. The purpose of this study was to develop the online…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a survey of national trends in educational achievement, is attempting to expand its inclusion of students with disabilities or limitations that have previously caused them to be excluded from the assessment. The study described was a precursor to the 1996 changes in NAEP inclusion procedures.…

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) was conducted for the first time in 1991 to collect data on the early childhood education (ECE) experiences of young children and participation in adult education. Because the NHES methodology is relatively new, field tests were necessary. A large field test of approximately 15,000 households was…

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) was conducted for the first time in 1991 as a way to collect data on the early childhood education experiences of young children and participation in adult education. Because the NHES methodology is relatively new, field tests were necessary. A large field test of approximately 15,000 households was…

Issues related to achieving adequate national norms are reviewed, and a new methodology is proposed that would work to provide a true measure of national achievement levels on an annual basis and would enable reporting results in current-year norms. Statistical methodology and technology could combine to create a national norming process that…

This paper examines issues in designing post-school follow-up studies in special education. The examination focuses on survey research techniques, which are widely used in the investigation of post-school adjustment of former students with handicaps. In special education, survey research studies are used commonly to address many important…

The sampling procedures and results of data collection are documented for the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) base-year survey of eighth graders, which was conducted during the winter, spring, and summer of 1988. This abridged version of the 1989 contractor report does not report any information that could violate the…

A method for drawing inferences from complex samples is based on Rubin's approach to missing data in survey research. Standard procedures for drawing such inferences do not apply when the variables of interest are not observed directly, but must be inferred from secondary random variables which depend on the variables of interest stochastically.…

A sample of slightly over 1,500 students drawn from even-numbered grades in public schools of the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) were given the 1973 edition of the Stanford Achievement Test (grades 2, 4, 6, and 8) and the Test of Academic Skills (grades 10 and 12) in an attempt to assess student academic achievement in the basic skill areas of…