This digest reviews the basic building blocks of a structured interview, points out some of the pitfalls in interviewing, and suggests ways for researchers to avoid these difficulties to produce questions that have the best possibility of generating reliable and accurate data on the topics of interest. The data collection instrument is a document…

The perception is that most studies on distance education or the use of technology are poorly designed or prone to incomplete analyses. This is true of the simple comparison study, where student outcomes are compared to those of students in a traditional course. Such studies are the basis for the often cited conclusion that there is no significant…

The original impetus for this monograph was a grant from the New Jersey Basic Skills Council of the New Jersey Department of Higher Education to evaluate two college basic skills remedial programs (one in a four-year state college, one in a two-year community college) and to produce a handbook for conducting such evaluations. This monograph is…