Discusses the analytical problems that research on the academic profession must address and summarizes recent trends and debates. Suggests possible future developments in the context of four scenarios: "key profession,""academic work,""mediator," and "antiquity." Findings of the International Study on the Academic Profession are discussed in the…

Presents a lesson for high school students in which they collect and analyze data using questions from the actual Census 2000 long form and then participate in a simulation of a local planning council meeting to consider the short- and long-term community needs. Includes the Census 2000 long form. (CMK)

This article reviews the emergence of secondary analysis of data (SA) as a methodology for examining questions of relevance for social work and its implications for student education. Given the rapid expansion of available data archives from agencies, governmental and research sources, and technological advances in accessibility and ease of use,…

Rats obtained food-pellet reinforcers by nose poking a lighted key. Experiment 1 examined resistance to extinction following single-schedule training with different variable-interval schedules, ranging from a mean interval of 16 min to 0.25 min. That is, for each schedule, the rats received 20 consecutive daily baseline sessions and then a session…

This study examined perceptions of preparedness for post-secondary education in the province of Ontario. Participants were 272 university students enrolled in the first year of a four-or five-year concurrent teacher education program and represented two distinctive groups: (a) entrants who had completed the old five-year Ontario Academic Credit…

This study explored relations between social network characteristics in an online graduate class and two learning outcomes: affective and cognitive learning. The social network analysis data were compiled by entering the number of one-to-one postings sent by each student to each other student in a course web site discussion space into a specially…

In this article, the author discusses how assessment has taken a central role in library education, the concept of identifying and measuring the contributing factors toward effective learning in order to optimize course delivery has become a vital activity, with the incorporation of online course delivery as well as other technology-enriched…

This is the second part of a four-part report on data-driven decision-making. Widespread attention to school accountability, driven by state and federal mandates, has increased the stakes for all schools. These mandates have made more data available to educators at all levels, but they have not been as effective in encouraging teachers to use…

Most teachers welcome the opportunity to become more effective educators, and look for ways to improve their own teaching practice. With the dizzying array of state tests, district assessments, and program-specific rubrics, many are at a loss as to how to begin using data to improve their practice. There are many ways teachers can use data to…

Over the past five years, the No Child Left Behind Act, with its mandates for collecting and documenting student achievement statistics, has fueled a surge in the volume of data collected by schools, districts, and state education departments. This information explosion has gone hand in hand with technology's growing affordability and…

Institutional researchers frequently use national datasets such as those provided by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The authors of this chapter explore the adjustments required when analyzing NCES data collected using complex sample designs. (Contains 8 tables.)

This study examines cross-national differences in returns to literacy skills and explores possible explanations for such differences. Data from the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) are analyzed using multilevel models. Returns to literacy skills are higher in liberal market economies (LMEs) than in social market economies (SMEs).…

The purpose of this study was to examine the perspectives of key policy informants on the factors that they believed influence policy decisions in literacy education. Participants were selected because they had significantly influenced, or had attempted to influence, policy decisions in literacy at either the national or state level.…

This study examined whether the impact of student-faculty interaction on a range of student outcomes--including academic achievement, goals, self-confidence, well-being, and attitudes--differed for women and men. The data were drawn from a national longitudinal sample of college students (N = 17,637) who were surveyed upon entry to college in 1994…

Choosing the most appropriate method to handle missing data during analyses is one of the most challenging decisions confronting researchers. Often, missing values are just ignored rather than replaced with a reliable imputation method. Six methods of data imputation were used to replace missing data from two data sets of varying sizes; this…