Although there is increasing interest in evidence-based decision making in postsecondary education, there have been few large-scale empirical studies on the subject, and none of the research to date has examined in depth what specific data college faculty and administrators use in their jobs and the extent to which they use data analysis to design…

This chapter describes several examples of institutional use of state- and college-level tracking data to benchmark performance, improve student success, and enhance program effectiveness.

District central office administrators increasingly face policy demands to use "evidence" in their decision making. These demands up the ante on education policy researchers and policy makers to better understand what evidence use in district central offices entails and the conditions that may support it. To that end, the authors conducted a…

Three issues emanating from the Bulterman-Bos article (2008) form the core of this commentary. First, the issue of relevancy is addressed from the standpoint of action research and other forms of practitioner inquiry. From this perspective, the divisions between the cultures of university and school are addressed both ways: Each can potentially be…

Ohio Educational Library Media Association (OELMA) has been working for many years to gather evidence in hopes of convincing their state government of the need for a certified library media specialist in every school. Its latest efforts began in 2002 when the board of OELMA applied for a grant to do a state study. Board members of OELMA, however,…

Evidence-based practice (EBP) refers to clinical decisions as a result of the careful integration of research evidence and student needs. Legal mandates such as No Child Left Behind require teachers to employ evidence-based practices in their classrooms, yet teachers receive little guidance regarding how to determine which practices are…

The critical reading of research involves: (1) comprehension, (2) evaluation, and (3) application. A study examined six recently published textbooks to determine to what extent they attempt to help students learn to apply educational research; these texts were specifically designed for "consumers" of research (i.e., critical readers of…

What it means to use research is a potentially contentious topic. With the emphasis on constructivist approaches in teacher education programs, the traditional explanations involving generalizability are inadequate in that there is no consideration of what the user brings to the use. Discussion of the various ways in which use can be framed leads…

The policy of the Rehabilitation Services Administration is to encourage research and demonstration projects to involve users in appropriate roles in order to assure greater use of findings. This article stresses participatory planning and outlines the roles and responsibilities of both the researcher and the user in a research activity. (Author)

Numerous misuses of statistics are described and illustrated, and ways of recognizing and avoiding such misuse are discussed. The following five categories of statistical misuse are identified: a lack of knowledge of the subject matter, the quality of the basic data, the preparation of the study and the report, the statistical methodology, and a…

This bibliography identifies reports of research on the effects of variables other than knowledge of content on mathematics test performance. The listing was developed for a synthesis of its research, performed by meta-analysis at Adrian College, Michigan, in 1985. Variables chosen for study were determined by the criterion that each could be…

The proposed study will examine whether effective clinical supervision requires supervisors who practice certain strategies and procedures as they dialogue with supervisees in the conference, or whether the mere acquisition by supervisors and/or supervisees of research-verified knowledge about teaching and learning, e.g., the role of academic…

Adopting the position, expressed by A. P. Bochner in his critique of small group communication research, that placing measurement in a secondary role increases the danger of accepting the claims of experiments with excessive error, this paper examines nine current quantitative small-group communication studies. Using a schema developed by J. F.…

This digest looks at research findings and instructional applications of effective teacher presentation skills. Research has identified five critical skills: eliciting frequent responses, maintaining an appropriate pace during the lesson, maintaining attention, monitoring student responses and adjusting the lesson, and ensuring all students an…

Thirty papers are presented in this monograph providing insights, ideas, and directions for recreational sports professionals. Topics covered at this conference included: (1) administration and management of recreational programs; (2) program operation; (3) recreational theory and research; (4) professional development; (5) special interests and…