This document is a comprehensive guide to the wide range of statistical activities under way and planned at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). This edition of "Programs and Plans" presents a few user-friendly enhancements, including an index to assist the reader in locating information on popular education topics such…

This book offers useful, prescriptive advice on how to enter different field settings for interviewing and observation. The chapters of part 1, "Stages of Access," are: (1) "Finding Informants"; (2) "Human Subjects and Permission To Contact Informants"; (3) "Making Initial Contact"; (4) "Developing a Rapport"; and (5) "Exiting: Ending the…

This paper describes the use of focus groups as a qualitative research method. The focus group is a carefully designed discussion that allows people to express their points of view and provide researchers with indicators of program impact. Participants in focus groups possess certain characteristics related to the subject under study. They are…

This book, designed for novice researchers, provides a step-by-step guide to the development of a research project. It emphasizes learning how to do qualitative work and provides specific examples from real studies. The chapters are: (1) "Deciding To Do a Qualitative Study"; (2) "Designing Qualitative Studies"; (3) "Collecting Qualitative Data";…

This manual describes the development of the surveys fielded in 2003 under the National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES: 2003). It describes how the questionnaires were designed, how the samples were developed, data collection experiences, and file information needed to analyze the NHES: 2003 data sets. The surveys fielded as part of…

Census 2000 reported large increases from Census 1990 in the number of Hispanics identifying themselves as "other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino" and produced a lower count of several Central and South American nationalities compared to projections based on data tracking immigration trends. This study describes an alternative estimate of the…

This paper discusses the ways in which photography was used for data generation in a 9-month qualitative study on a mixed-age elementary school classroom. Through a review of the research literature in anthropology, sociology, and education, and an analysis of the research data, the usefulness of photography for educational research with young…

This book provides crucial information about selecting and administering outcome assessment measures, collecting and interpreting data, and using outcome information in practice. It provides the information mental health professionals need to practice knowledgeably, efficiently, and ethically in todays' behavioral health environment. The chapters…

In this paper a method is proposed whereby an investigator may improve the metric qualities of questionnaire and similar kinds of data. (Author)

The major thrust of this paper rests on the belief that information can be obtained from analysis of the relationship between unmeasured variables which would not otherwise be gleaned from the data. (Author)

Several alternative solutions are offered to problem posed in AA 513 150. (MB)

Discusses the need to provide a set of indices of environmental quality that aggregate and summarize available data, indicates the deficiencies in the data base that could be rectified by alternate data collection techniques, and describes progress toward the goal. (AL)

In a study of teacher role, the collection of data from a sample of teachers in the United States, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand is described, and the techniques used to analyze the data are discussed. (DB)

The wheel is shown to be (a) more reliable; (b) less susceptible to patterning of responses, while (c) the influence of ordering of scales on responses is reduced. (Author)