This article provides directions for teaching intermediate grade level children about the history which can be learned by studying old cemeteries. A sample handout for student data collection is included. (JDH)

Discusses results of a survey of trainers in midwest business and industry to identify the different data collection methods they used to determine job and task training needs as well as organizational and individual training needs within their organizations. (MBR)

Outlines the development of the National Minimum Standard Conferences. The major purpose of these conferences has been recommendations regarding standards and operations for school buses. (MD)

Discusses various software packages which help science and mathematics students make sense out of data (formulating hypotheses, interpreting graphs, analyzing possibilities, and collecting data with real-time graphing). Includes a list of commercially available programs for the areas, with program name, publisher, grade level(s), price, and…

This article focuses on futures-oriented methodologies that can be used in applied vocational education research. After a discussion of several conceptual issues, methodologies having major implications for applied research are identified. These methodologies are compared and contrasted to determine which one might be most useful for a particular…

Explores the possibility of expanding the research base in distance education through the use of three well-known and accepted qualitative methodologies used by anthropology and sociology: ethnography, case study, and grounded theory. Each methodology's characteristics and main strengths are described. (MBR)

Discusses Ward's article on the potential usefulness of social science researchers for government agencies' analysis of public opinion. Emphasizes the need to gather representative data and suggests that researchers can take a proactive role by using a theory of social behavior such as Bronfenbrenner's. (CB)

Notes that major changes have occurred in the factors investigated and the data collection procedures employed in teacher effectiveness research and that the generalizability of significant findings continues to be limited by methodological and experimental design problems. (FL)

Existing data on illegal immigration in the U.S. is inadequate. The limited availability of macrodata on the size of the annual flows and of the accumulated stock of individuals as well as of microdata on their influence on selected labor markets has been used to forestall policy reform efforts. (Author/RDN)

The Delphi technique is a method for the systematic solicitation and aggregation of informed judgments from a group of experts on specific questions or issues. This paper is a discussion of the technique: its uses, misuses, and future. (Author)

Attempts to describe criteria for the evaluation of religious truth. (Author/RK)

After a frustrating year working through a traditional evaluation of a special program funded for the purpose of assisting school desegregation by the Office of Education, the authors wrote this article to describe the mistakes they had made, their small triumphs, and their subsequent evaluation of their own procedures and attitudes. (Editor/RK)

The primary concern of this study was to assess the levels of commitment that women expressed toward being artists in order that other variables--such as the women's family history data, their personality characteristics, and the types of schools they attended--could be examined across the levels of commitment. (Author/RK)

Discussion of gathering data from community sources and techniques for collecting data to identify educational needs for university continuing education programs. (ABM)

This Backgrounder Brief is an executive summary of "Data-Driven Decision Making: Vision to Know and Do," a component of CoSN's Essential Leadership Skills Series. Collecting student achievement data is nothing new in schools. But for all of the data gathered, many schools remain information poor. Educators are challenged to understand…