This study explored the understandings of data and measurement that school students draw upon, and the ways that they reason from data, when carrying out a practical science inquiry task. The two practical tasks used in the study each involved investigations of the relationships between two independent variables (IVs) and a dependent variable…

Data-driven decision-making (D3M) appears to be the new buzz phrase for this century, the information age. On the education front, teachers and administrators are engaging in data-centered dialog in grade-level meetings, lounges, hallways, and classrooms as they brainstorm toward closing the gap in student achievement. Clearly, such discussion…

While helping high school students develop statistical thinking, teachers need to engage them in all phases of investigative cycle. Students should master some of the nonmathematical elements of the cycle involved in identifying a problem, creating a plan of attack and gathering necessary data.

The collection and use of data are generally accepted as important educational practices. Nevertheless, evidence exists that interventionists' data collection practices tend to be infrequent and nonsystematic. This study investigated the perspectives of early childhood interventionists about the use of data in their classrooms. Perspectives about…

The societal role of education accountability programs is mainly to see that schools and teachers provide excellent instruction to help kids learn better. The school's educators should collectively determine what kinds of credible evidence, other than No Child Left Behind (NCLB) test scores, could help provide an accurate and honest picture of…

A community college is always a reflection of its community, and LaGuardia Community College is no exception. Located in Queens--one of the five boroughs of New York City and, according to the 2000 census, the most ethnically diverse county in the United States--LaGuardia serves students from over 159 different countries who speak more than 110…

The Delphi technique permits the collection of rich evaluation data. Benefits of using the Delphi include the collection of data that is generated by participants with minimal leading by researchers, an iterative process that demonstrates to participants how their ideas and opinions are being utilized in the research process, and a planned…

The paper discusses two common scenarios in which evaluators must conduct impact evaluations when working under budget, time, or data constraints. Under the first scenario the evaluator is not called in until the project is already well advanced, and there is a tight deadline for completing the evaluation, frequently combined with a limited budget…

In order to facilitate personal development planning (PDP), the UK higher education sector is committed to introducing progress files. This article explores the experience of one institution in seeking to establish a system of progress files. It identifies the main practical problems in doing this, highlighting the lack of agreement on the skills…

The consequences of the separate and unequal education policies of the apartheid years in South Africa persist into the present, and without specific redress measures will persist into the future. The disparities are most serious in the higher education gateway subjects Mathematics and Physical Science. In order to track education redress it is…

In 1997, the Office of Management and Budget revised guidelines for treatment of racial and ethnic data, adding a requirement to allow respondents to indicate more than one race and mandating a change in all federal data collection and reporting by January 1, 2003. Nearly 2 years after the deadline for implementation, however, higher education…

Using data from the evaluation of the Fast Track intervention, this article illustrates three methods for handling attrition. Multiple imputation and ignorable maximum likelihood estimation produce estimates that are similar to those based on listwise-deleted data. A panel selection model that allows for selective dropout reveals that highly…

Six children with cerebral palsy and severe speech impairment took part in a two-phase longitudinal study of development of social cognition. The children ranged in age from 5 to 7 years old at data collection time 1 and from nine to 11 years old at data collection time 2. Using a model of normal development of Theory of Mind (ToM) suggested by…

Schools in England have a range of data sources available to them to track pupils' progress effectively, ranging from national to school level. Tracking pupils' performance not only shows value-added evidence but it also helps the pupils and teacher see when and where they are doing well or not so well and the reasons for this. The records can…

In this paper we interrelate different theories of identity and describe how various social contexts and cognitive motives influence the process of identity change. We consider two competing theories about the linkage of contexts with motives for identity change: the effect of category traits, based on social identity theory, and the effect of…