Four researchers at the Educational Testing Service describe what they consider some of the most vexing research problems they face. While these problems are not completely statistical, they all have major statistical components. Following the introduction (section 1), in section 2, "Problems with the Simultaneous Estimation of Many True…

This study gauges the secondary impacts of Ontario, Canada's higher education system, in an attempt to define the boundary of production that encloses the economic activities involved in sustaining the demands put on the system by normal university activities. The accounting framework, upon which the impact model is based, is Statistics Canada…

This paper begins with "insider" voices from disciplines that students in a writing program rarely encounter. As background, the paper muses on the theoretical and pedagogical potential of studying and understanding the rhetoric of inquiry in other disciplines as a way of arriving at a social constructionist view of knowledge. The paper…

This report contains 34 tables of revenue and expenditure data for the nation's accredited institutions of higher education for the 9-year period from fiscal year 1986 (FY86) through fiscal year 1994 (FY94). Data are from the Integrated Postsecondary Education System and the Higher Education General Information Survey. Tables cover: revenue and…

The 1990s will likely be a watershed period for middle level education, as the real challenges surrounding making "second level" changes replace the euphoria that accompanied early growth of the middle school movement. Yet, zealousness still characterizes reform efforts at the middle level. This study, the most comprehensive ever…

In spite of a commitment to diversify and recruitment initiatives to attract people of color, the number of new librarians that enter the workforce each year do not reflect the diversity of the U.S. population. It is important that diversity initiatives now being planned have accurate baseline data on which to build strategies. This report…

A wealth of material about education in the United States is collected and released by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The NCES gathers data on all aspects of education from across the country, organizes the data in useful forms, and releases the resulting surveys and studies as survey reports,…

This report describes a case study in the use of peer mentoring and cohorts to improve doctoral student retention and summarizes survey data reflecting the experience of eight universities. The University of California/California State University Fresno Joint Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership was designed to create cohorts of doctoral…

The International Language Testing Association has some 250 members in 15 countries. Most are specialists in the testing of second language skills, with a special interest in performance assessment because of the testing of speaking and writing performance that is critical to second language skills assessment. The association believes that certain…

Results of administering a computerized adaptive version of the Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation Test (GSP) to students in the College of Communication at the University of Texas, Austin were studied. The computerized adaptive version (CAT) was administered for the first time in June 1992 to 35 prospective students who participated in the…

This paper presents a preliminary investigation of the psycholinguistic abilities of first-year undergraduate student learners of French. In particular, it reports on the construction and use of a battery of tests of metalinguistic knowledge, language aptitude, grammatical accuracy in French, and French linguistic proficiency, and explores the…

This survey of the current status of public school libraries in Maine was intended to provide statistical data as a basis for improving the school library media center program in these schools. Information was gathered that detailed how resources and delivery of services differed across grade level; across variation in size of school; between…

In 1970, the City University of New York (CUNY) instituted a controversial open-admissions policy, which permitted the enrollment of large numbers of students in need of basic skills instruction. In 1990, a study was conducted to compare the 1989 freshman cohort at New York City Technical College with the first open-admissions cohort entering the…

This report examines the changes that occurred in college student financial aid between 1986-87 and 1989-90 by comparing students receiving various forms of aid in the fall of 1986 with those receiving aid in the fall of 1989. The data used were derived from the 1987 and 1990 National Postsecondary Student Aid Studies (NPSAS). The overall focus of…

A study examined whether or not the composition faculty at the University of Northern Iowa agreed on criteria for evaluating student writing and to what extent they would give similar scores even if their criteria did not agree. Using 15 sample student papers written for the Writing Competency Examination (WCE), the scores given by current writing…