Research Ideas for the Classroom is a three-volume series of research interpretations for early childhood, middle grades, and high school mathematics classrooms. Each volume looks at research from the perspective of the learner, the content, and the teacher, and chapters are co-authored by a researcher and a teacher. Chapter titles in the early…

The Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) was designed by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to provide recurrent information about public and private elementary and secondary schools, teachers, and administrators. The NCES commissioned these papers to examine the SASS and to make recommendations about its future. The following…

Describing Pima Community College's (Arizona) institutional effectiveness program, this report provides related board policy, an overview of the program, and an analysis of each of the five program components. Following introductory materials and a board statement indicating the college's commitment to ensuring institutional effectiveness through…

This study develops a portrait of 1991 Teachers of the Year from across the country. A questionnaire sent to 50 outstanding teachers was completed by 35 teachers who provided information on the following: (1) important teacher characteristics; (2) educational background and experience; (3) important teacher tasks; (4) evaluation of their teacher…

In response to the legislative mandate and the increasing need for timely and high-quality data by policymakers at various levels, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has initiated a number of actions, programs, and surveys to improve the amount and quality of education information. To improve the relevance of data, the NCES has…

A project was conducted to examine the impact of vocational education and training (VET) research on decision making in VET in Australia. Data were collected from the following: a literature review; a symposium attended by state-, territory-, and national-level VET policymakers and planners and VET providers; semistructured telephone interviews…

In spring 1991, a survey was conducted of 991 community and technical colleges nationwide to determine the extent to which they engaged in environmental scanning (ES) activities. In particular, the study sought to identify those institutions that currently conduct environmental scans; the nature of the links between ES and program development,…

In 1991, a national survey was conducted of institutional research directors at 150 two- and four-year colleges to investigate practitioner perceptions of institutional research effectiveness and productivity. Randomly selected directors of institutional research were mailed a one-page questionnaire, requesting information about institution size…

In all of his published work, Jean Piaget never abandoned his original theoretical framework for the understanding of human development. This framework insists that intelligence is essentially a biological phenomenon; its development is best understood as the development of a sophisticated and highly successful adaptation device. This device…

The types and number of faculty cases litigated and reported at state and federal levels for the 1982 calendar year were examined. Each of 48 cases was reviewed for the basic facts, the underlying legal rationale, the data requirements, and the decision of the court. Categories of cases and the associated data needs were developed. From these…

Federally funded educational knowledge production is a recent phenomenon, having expanded exponentially during the 1960's and 1970's. Accordingly, in response to current public scrutiny of the use of federal funds and of education itself, a historical review and assessment of the role of the federal government in relation to educational knowledge…

This case study, one in a series of research efforts designed to examine the utilization of the Administration on Aging's research, describes the different types of uses of materials produced by a research project on improvement of transportation services for the elderly. (The materials are a state-of-the-art report, planning handbook, and…

A report is given of a collaborative 3-year teacher education improvement project which was begun in 1986. Project participants included the Catholic University Department of Education, District of Columbia and Montgomery County (Maryland) public schools, Washington, D.C. parochial schools, and a private school. The aim of the project was to…

This study analyzes the ways in which school boards assess and utilize evaluation data and their attitudes toward testing. Interviews with 27 school board members from 10 districts indicate that board members tend to rely on informal working knowledge over formal information, and on district administrators' judgments. Findings suggest that simple…

Research on teaching does not play a significant role in the practice of teaching in schools despite the fact that the first scientific studies of teaching were reported nearly 90 years ago. Although there is clear evidence that practical classroom experience unaided by research is not a sufficient basis for effective teaching, it is also true…