Whether the goal is to identify and describe trends and variation in populations, create new measures of key phenomena, or describe samples in studies aimed at identifying causal effects, description plays a critical role in the scientific process in general and education research in particular. Descriptive analysis identifies patterns in data to…

Educational planners and policymakers are rarely able to base their decision-making on sound information and research, according to this book. Because the situation is even more difficult in developing countries, educational policy often is based on research conducted in others parts of the world. This book provides a practical framework that can…

Describes the development and design of an undergraduate course which utilized a marketing principles class to teach students information gathering techniques as part of a college wide competency requirement. The materials and procedures used, roles of instructors and librarians in the course, and evaluation of the project are discussed. (CLB)