Under Section 1111(h)(5) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as amended by the "No Child Left Behind Act" (NCLB), the Secretary of Education is required to transmit to the Committee on Education and the Workforce of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions of the Senate a…

The sample assessment items in this volume are sorted according to the strands of number and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis and probability. Because one goal of assessment is to determine students' abilities to communicate mathematically, the writing team suggests ways to extend or modify multiple-choice and…

The aim of this paper is to examine a variety of features of research that might account for mixed findings of the relationship between teachers' subject matter knowledge and student achievement based on meta-analytic technique. Of several variables that might contribute to inconsistencies and variations in study findings, three features of…

A common request to Centers such as ours is for information about the prevalence and incidence of youngsters' problems. The intent of this report is to provide a synthesis of the best data and to clarify the limitations of what has been gathered so far. As you will see, available data continue to be quite limited. The synthesis reported here…

This paper provides an overview of the entire process necessary to developing a university-wide web survey, from the community-building process for creating support for the survey and determining the questions, to the specific tasks necessary for designing and administering an efficient web product. (Contains 17 tables.)

During the 2002-2003 academic year, six roundtables were held to explore uses of the data from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) for improvement of student learning. This paper describes the roundtable discussion held in St. Louis, Missouri, in March 2003. Participants were student affairs administrators from a range of institutions…

This report examines the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative (BASRC), which aims to change school culture, enhance educational quality for all San Francisco Bay Area students, and close the achievement gap. Among the tools BASRC provides schools to guide the inquiry process when making decisions about change is the Cycle of Inquiry model. This…

NASA Connect is an interdisciplinary, instructional distance learning program targeting students in grades 6-8. This videotape explains how engineers and researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) use data analysis and measurement to predict solar storms, anticipate how they will affect the Earth, and improve…

Data based instruction reflects the teachers implementation of a carefully planned system of instruction for a selected learner. The purpose is to provide documentation of the effect of instruction implemented for learner(s) with special needs; evaluate the effect of using specific instructional organization and delivery systems; perform an…

The purpose of this booklet is to document cross-national patterns of adult learning, and in particular the unequal chances to participate in adult learning. In so doing, an effort is made to identify important motivating factors for participating in adult learning. The specific objectives of the booklet are to: (1) make available the…

The external audit is a way of assessing the trustworthiness of a study, attesting to its dependability from a methodological standpoint and to its confirmability by reviewing the data, analysis, and interpretations and assessing whether the findings represent the data accurately. This paper discusses issues in the audit process, drawing on data…

Nearly all the states produce one or more accountability or indicator reports containing data reported at one or more levels of the education system as well as data from other sources. To inform discussion about what data are useful and appropriate to report, comparisons were made of state accountability and indicator reports. A list of 74…

The 1988 National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF-88), later named the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, was the first comprehensive study of higher education instructional faculty conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics since 1963. This report provides a description of the 1993 NSOPF and the data generated by its…

This book offers a resource guide for qualitative researchers in education, discussing data collection techniques, data analysis, reporting, and the issues of validity, reliability, and ethics. Part 1 reviews the nature and design of qualitative research; it discusses various types of qualitative research (including case studies), and how to…

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the economic impacts and benefits of Florida public libraries. The study objectives were to: describe the role of public libraries in economic development; identify and describe the range of specific activities and programs engaged in to support economic development; identify factors that…