The present study combined parallel data from the Northeast-Northwest Collaborative Adoption Projects (N2CAP) and the Western Reserve Reading Project (WRRP) to examine sibling similarity and quantitative genetic model estimates for measures of reading skills in 272 school-age sibling pairs from three family types (monozygotic twins, dizygotic…

The seven cohort studies of the relation between prenatal and postnatal exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) to cognitive, neuropsychological and behavioral development have suggested that exposure to PCBs can cause persistent changes in cognitive functioning. D.V. Cicchetti, A.S. Kaufman, and S.S. Sparrow (this issue) apply six scientific…

This chapter discusses how Central Piedmont Community College (CPCC) has used data from the National Community College Benchmark Project. Analysis of project benchmark data led to a review of high course-withdrawal rates and CPCC withdrawal policies as well as their effects on student program completion and within-term retention. As a result, the…

This article reports data from children aged about 5 years in their 1st year of schooling. Scores on tests of both literacy and numeracy at the start and end of the year were used to derive value-added measures of progress using both residual gain analysis and multilevel (ML) modelling. Results indicated that the school was more effective in…

Imagine being able to engage students in learning statistics. Teachers would need their students to have access to a large database of real data, preferably about students. It would be even better if students were part of the database. Ideally, the data would enable students to ask questions of interest to them. For a teacher, it would be…

This presentation of the innovation-driven environment in Colombia derives from important national efforts to gather and store pertinent information. Two large surveys have tested the "innovative behaviour" of Colombian manufacturing firms--the more recent of these was in 2005. Another information source is the Scienti platform, an…

A major factor attributed to the problem and consequences of underage alcohol use is binge drinking. The objective of this study was to examine binge drinking and other alcohol-related problem behaviour among high-risk male and female adolescents who were from alternative schools and programs because of learning and/or behaviour problems.…

National guidelines define asthma control as the prevention of asthma symptoms rather than the treatment of asthma exacerbations. We hypothesized that we would find a discrepancy between what parents consider adequate control compared to what health care professionals mean by "control." Data from a telephone survey conducted for the…

Needs assessments require staff with the necessary expertise to design the study, collect the data, analyze the data, and present results. They require money, time, and persistence, because the people one wishes to assess often are difficult to access. This article argues for the centrality of a well-done needs assessment when developing services…

This article reports the findings of a survey of 558 teachers in England. It describes how conceptual and empirical insights from the literature informed the construction of questionnaire items to provide answers to questions about the way in which teachers value different classroom assessment practices and how congruent with these values they…

The freshmen transition is a crucial time when students make health choices in their physical activities, eating behaviors, and stress management skills. A consortium of student affairs staff created and implemented an introduction to the wellness program through freshmen orientation classes. The program included a health behaviors assessment,…

Background: Speaking rate has implications for both clinical practice and an understanding of normal and disordered communication processes. Fundamental information on speaking rate is required by the clinician for the appropriate management of those disorders with disturbances of rate or those in which rate modification strategies are applied.…

The lawsuit Channing Club vs. The Board of Regents of Texas Tech University, 1970 has been used as a legal precedent in many student press censorship cases. A thorough understanding of Channing has become increasingly important since Hazelwood and other related decisions. Though Channing has been frequently cited in the literature, comparatively…

We show how an interactive website can help first-year undergraduates acquire independent study skills, and provide a user-friendly way of approaching challenging material in introductory level evolution and ecology. Students embraced the opportunity to undertake self-assessment tasks online, which allowed them to gauge their understanding and…

This study examined the use of a college course evaluation instrument in an effort to better understand and improve the assessment data derived from the instrument. The purpose of the analysis was to examine the dimensionality and reliability of the instrument but, more importantly, to understand what the data really tells us and whether…