Response differences between phone and face-to-face procedures are small and can be ignored for most research applications. Using the appropriate methods and experienced interviewers, initial cooperation is the same on telephone and face-to-face interviews. There may be slightly higher refusal or don't know responses and shorter answers to…

This paper takes as its data the assumptions, processes of deduction, and data types used in leading publications of historiometric studies of creativity. The paper uses this data to question the philosophical assumptions of the historiometrics of creativity from within its own positivist paradigm and to argue that its conclusions are…

Two investigations examined whether incentives increase the number of survey returns from former students and whether ideographic characteristics, incentives, and multiple mail-outs influence the perceptions of respondents. Survey responses of 125 (Study 1) and 67 (Study 2) baccalaureate graduates in education were used. The survey included 43…

The School Improvement Project (SIP) and Local School Development Project are two school-based constituency planning programs. The Documentation Unit is responsible for ongoing documentation and evaluation of them. The goals of the unit included holistic school assessment, development of school based needs assessment and evaluation activities, and…

The benefits accrued through the use of triangulation as both a design strategy and an analytic tool cannot be overstated. Triangulation allows for the clustering and organizing of disparate yet related data. Finding out what the data have in common and how the data are different allow the researcher to eliminate (or reduce) the number of…

This paper investigates measurement issues related to elements of the Internet and calls for a standardized measuring scheme to resolve the problem of the measurement. The dilemmas in measuring the elements of the Internet are identified, and previous studies are reviewed. Elements of the Internet are categorized into population, usage, protocol…

Basic questions about the evaluation of professional development efforts are explored, including the nature and purposes of evaluation, the critical levels of professional development evaluation, and the difference between evidence and proof in evaluation. Evaluation, which is defined as the systematic investigation of merit or worth, can be…

Discusses some practical issues in linking educational assessments, focusing on the importance of clarity of purpose when assessments are linked. Also stresses the importance of the design used to collect data for linking. Uses linking studies from a variety of situations to illustrate these points. (SLD)

This paper discusses a qualitative case study that addresses how an intranet can provide opportunities for learning about an organization's culture. Four primary findings are discussed with the study concluding that cultural knowledge is conveyed and renewed through an intranet in a learning process that emphasizes informal learning and…

The activities and procedures for Education Service Center, Region 20, Evaluation Services' time accounting system are described. Each individual in the evaluation component at the end of the working day records his or her time spent on an activity. This is done through the use of the time accounting form which is completed and turned in weekly to…

The methods used in the Teacher Corps Program Evaluation are based principally on the importance of securing the cooperation of local participants during data collection. Several principles concerning local cooperation were established and explained. These included encouraging active participation, encouraging local review of instruments,…

This paper reviews UNESCO activities for the collection of national production data of audiovisual materials and microforms and presents possible approaches to the task. UNESCO has for some years collected data on the production of printed materials, but while recognizing the need for collecting similar statistics on nonprint media, it has not yet…

Elementary and secondary school curriculum development and implementation in Ontario is guided by pamphlets (curriculum guidelines) from the Ministry of Education. The diverse nature of these pamphlets caused the Ministry to initiate the design of instruments to determine the meaningfulness and effectiveness of the guidelines throughout the…

Cognition in the elderly has been widely investigated, but there has been some disagreement concerning this phenomenon fostered in part by differences in instruments used, in data collection methods, and in analytic methods used. This study used Immediate and Delayed Recall data collected by the Health and Retirement Survey housed at the…

The Microsoft Certification Program (MCP) includes many new computer-based item types, based on complex cases involving the Windows 2000 (registered) operating system. This Innovative Item Technology (IIT) has presented challenges beyond traditional psychometric considerations such as capturing and storing the relevant response data from…