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Using evidence from Durham, North Carolina, we examine the impact of school choice programs on racial and class-based segregation across schools. Theoretical considerations suggest that how choice programs affect segregation will depend not only on the family preferences emphasized in the sociology literature but also on the linkages between student composition, school quality, and student achievement emphasized in the economics literature, and on the availability of schools of different types. Reasonable assumptions about how these factors differ for students of different races and socio-economic status suggest that the segregating choices of students from advantaged backgrounds are likely to outweigh any integrating choices by disadvantaged students. The results of our empirical analysis are consistent with these theoretical considerations. Using information on the actual schools students attend and on the schools in their assigned attendance zones, we find that schools in Durham are more segregated by race and class as a result of school choice programs than they would be if all students attended their geographically assigned schools. In addition, we find that the effects of choice on segregation by class are larger than the effects on segregation by race. (Contains 9 tables and 12 endnotes.)

This paper describes several methodological decisions made during a study of linguistic development of French in British classroom learners, highlighting the significance of choosing suitable tools for collecting, transcribing, and analyzing oral interlanguage data and noting the usefulness for interlanguage research of the CHILDES (Child Language Data Exchange System) procedures, which consists of three integrated components: the Talkbank database, CHAT (Codes for Human Analysis of Transcripts), and CLAN (Computerized Language Analysis). This paper is based on the Linguistic Development in Classroom Learners of French research project, which documents linguistic progression among classroom learners of French in grades 9-11, analyzes the development of morphosyntactic structures in spoken learner French, and evaluates the creative construction process and its interaction with formulaic languages among instructed learners. The paper notes general problems with the transcription and coding of French interlanguage but suggests that experiences to date with using CHILDES is encouraging. Three appendixes include elicitation tasks, CHAT symbols, and examples of preliminary transcription. (Contains 14 references.) (SM)

The Commission has started collecting data for the 2007 University Eligibility Study. This study is the latest in a series that began in 1966 to estimate the percentage of California public high school graduates who meet the admission requirements of the California State University (CSU) and the University of California (UC). California Education Code Section 66903 (q) directs the Commission to conduct periodic eligibility studies. The most recently completed eligibility study was for the high school graduating class of 2003. Eligibility studies are conducted by collecting a sample of transcripts from high schools throughout the State. The transcripts are reviewed by university staff to compare admission requirements with the courses, grades, and test scores of the sampled students. Statewide eligibility rates are estimated from this sample.

From its founding, The After-School Corporation (TASC) has worked to advance two interrelated goals: (1) Increase the availability of after-school opportunities by providing resources and approaches for establishing new projects and expanding existing projects; and (2) Enhance the quality of after-school services by incorporating research-based program components that are associated with student success and program sustainability. These goals have led TASC to engage in the rapid development and scaling up of after-school programming, in itself a major logistical accomplishment, and also the implementation of project monitoring, technical assistance, and professional development, along with the creation of special initiatives to address the relationships and supports that sustain TASC's network of after-school projects. These Supplementary Papers describe the overall goals and mission of TASC, the after-school service approach that it adopted, the resources and partnerships that support TASC, and its efforts to develop an after-school workforce. Appended are: (1) Criteria and Initial Characteristics of Participants, Active Participants, and Nonparticipants; and (2) Details of Data Used in Analysis of Changes in School Attendance. [This report was prepared for The After-School Corporation. For the Summary Report of the TASC Evaluation, see ED491883.]

This occasional paper updates and extends earlier papers in the Monitoring the Future project. It provides a detailed description of the project's design, including sampling design; data collection procedures; measurement content; and questionnaire format. It attempts to include sufficient information for others who wish to evaluate the results, to replicate aspects of the study, or to analyze data that is archived. Although there have been additions to the study design and procedures, the basic study design described in a 1978 paper has remained constant in its fundamental characteristics, which is considered the key condition for its ability to successfully measure change. Following an introduction and overview, this paper presents the scope, purposes, and rationale for the nationwide sampling of 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students. In the measures section, an overview is presented of the conceptual framework of the study, the outline of questionnaire content, the questionnaire organization, and the consent and format of the 8th and 10th grade questionnaires. Sampling and data collection procedures are included in the next section, which is followed by the representativeness and validity. (Contains 2 tables, 3 figures, and 106 references.) (JDM)

The prominent role of Boolean classes in qualitative data analysis software is viewed by some as an encroachment of logical positivism on qualitative research methodology. The authors articulate an embodiment perspective, in which Boolean classes are viewed as conceptual metaphors for apprehending and manipulating data, concepts, and categories in the same way we perceive and manipulate worldly objects and containers. Drawing on examples from seminal approaches to qualitative methods, they demonstrate how one central aspect of qualitative research practices--the process of coding data--can productively be viewed as collecting and containing concepts and categories in this embodied sense. They discuss the implications of this view for coding and for bridging qualitative and quantitative methods of inquiry. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)

Systemic efforts to implement data-based decision making at the school and classroom level face several challenges. First, most data available within district information systems are limited to what has been deemed important for the operational needs of schools and the district. Second, educational organizations have little experience integrating complex data into their decision-making processes. Third, although large-scale assessment and accountability data are more generally available for gauging the performance of educational systems, there are major differences between the evidence used for external accountability systems and the data needed for making instructional decisions on a daily basis in the classroom. (Contains 2 figures, 1 table, and 6 notes.) [The research reported in this paper is also sponsored by the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, School of Education, University of Wisconsin--Madison.]

A school locale code defines show a school is situated in a particular location in terms of the size of the community in which it is located and the proximity of that community to urban and metropolitan areas. School locale codes are part of the general information reported by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the Common Core of Data (CCD) Public School Universe file. This paper includes information on the history of locale codes; the definitions of codes and how they have changed since the original codes were developed; the original methodology for assigning school locale codes, metro status codes, and district-level locale codes; and the changes that have taken place in the methodologies. It is intended as a resource for those who use local code statistics from multiple years of the NCES CCD files. Locale codes were first used in the school year 1987-1988 data collection, but their definitions have changed over the years, and will continue to change as the need arises. (SLD)

This paper presents a model for analyzing and drawing inferences from pre- and post-assessment data that are not as clean as might be desired. The model was applied to comparison of freshman and senior scores on the Academic Profile and Short Form at Cardinal Stritch University (Wisconsin). As of 1997-98, 891 pre-tests had been administered to new students and 514 post-tests to completing seniors. However, some seniors students were never post-tested, some students took the test more than once, and some students didn't take the test seriously. This study eliminated scores that were greater or less than two standard deviations from the gross means, then recalculated means and standard deviations. Then separate t-tests were compared: (1) pre- and post-test scores of students who had taken both tests (matched pairs); (2) scores of students who had taken only the pre-test or post-test (independent samples); and (3) comparisons of classic predictors of college success (college entrance exam scores, high school grades). Comparison of matched pairs indicated significant differences favoring the post-tests as did comparison of the independent samples. However, several predictor measures for pre-test takers were higher than for post-test takers, an unexpected finding for which possible interpretations are offered. (DB)

This paper describes the strategies used at the University of Puerto Rico (Humacao) to overcome limitations resulting from a low response rate to their alumni surveys. Evaluation of earlier experiences with alumni studies led to identification of two principles for effective alumni studies: (1) the alumni study has to be a collaborative effort between the faculty in the academic programs and the institutional researchers, and (2) graduates' loyalty is more to their faculty and their programs than the institution as a whole. The revised approach utilized a questionnaire evaluating both the institution and the specific program. It addition to the questionnaire, the approach used focus groups and personal interviews. Findings indicated: increases in response rates from 28 percent to 41 percent for one-year graduates and from 12 percent to 33 percent for three-year graduates; increases in faculty participation from 6 departments (46 percent) to 12 departments (92 percent), and implementation of a new institutional study of employers and graduate schools. (Contains 30 references and 7 tables.) (DB)

Those who study education policy have struggled to understand how money matters in education and why educational research finds no strong or consistent relationship between expenditures and student performance. The papers in this publication were commissioned by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to address the twin concerns of what additional school-finance information NCES should collect and report, and how extant data might be analyzed. The publication is dedicated to Charles S. Benson, University of California, Berkeley, who dedicated his life's work to improving education finance for students in poor school districts. Following the foreword by Paul D. Planchon, and acknowledgments, contents include the following papers: (1) "Introduction and Overview" (William J. Fowler, Jr.); (2) "Does Money Matter in Education? A Policymaker's Guide" (Lawrence O. Picus); (3) "The Effect of Constitutional Litigation on Educational Finance: A Further Analysis" (G. Alan Hickrod); (4) "Student-Level School Resource Measures" (Robert Berne and Leanna Stiefel); (5) "Proposed 'Good Practices' for Creating Data Bases from the F-33 and CCD for School Finance Analyses" (Michael O'Leary and Jay Moskowitz); and (6) "The Empirical Argument for Educational Adequacy, the Critical Gaps in the Knowledge Base, and a Suggested Research Agenda" (William H. Clune). Each article contains references. (LMI)

A study focused on researchers' use of the English-Language Background Questionnaire (EBQ) portion of the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS), the results of which were released in 1993. Data were gathered by surveying NALS data users about how they have used the EBQ data, their perspectives on the strengths and weaknesses of the EBQ, and their recommendations for changes to the EBQ. A content analysis was also conducted of published research papers that have involved analyses of the EBQ data to determine how the data were used in these research analyses. The study also drew upon recommendations garnered by a series of focus groups conducted by the American Institutes for Research in 1998. These sources were integrated with the study's own analysis of the NALS data. The following changes to the EBQ for future adult literacy assessments were recommended: expand the questions pertaining to educational experiences; expand the section on social and political participation or move the current items to other areas and delete this section; add an item on voter registration; acquire more detailed information regarding work history, wages, and parents' occupations; expand the section pertaining to literacy practices; and gather information on technological literacy practices. (Appendixes include 34 references; instruments; and studies examined for content review.) (YLB)

Anthony Biglan (1973) proposed a typology of academic disciplines that identified three dimensions of academics' perceptions of the similarity of fields of scholarship: (1) "hard-soft", (2) "pure-applied", and (3) "life-non-life". Derek Price (1965) suggested that bibliographic data could be used to provide an assessment of whether hard and soft fields vary as suggested by Biglan's interpretation. Using reference network graphs of publication patterns of citation patterns, Price argued that in research areas exhibiting high levels of consensus, scholars tend to cite recently published documents but in fields with low levels of consensus, there is no disproportional citation of recent work. To assess Price's argument, this study collected data in nine research areas in disciplines spanning Biglan's hard-soft dimension. Using published reviews in each area and indices, publication lists were created of cited works. The results are generally consistent with Biglan's interpretation of the hard-soft dimension as reflecting disciplinary differences in consensus. Four physical science specialties showed over-citation of recent papers while the four social and behavioral science areas showed under-citation of recent papers. One area, in mathematics, did not show the predicted results. The consistency between the results found and Biglan's interpretation of the nature of the "hard-soft" dimension, provides a measure of support for Biglan's interpretation. (Contains 16 references.) (JLS)

The informal learning practices of bank branch workers were examined in a study of a major Canadian bank. The study included ethnographic fieldwork and secondary analysis of a national survey of branch workers' learning practices during the introduction of a new financial services software system. Activity theory was used to examine workers' informal learning practices as situated and to trace the shift learning at the bank branch during the 1990s from a process based on a largely informal training approach to an increasingly formalized self-study approach. The study established that the bank branch workers continued to rely heavily on collective and individual informal learning practices to perform their day-to-day work, adjust to the introduction of new processes and technologies, and cope with stress even though the restructuring of work processes and learning that had occurred within the bank left the workers with diminishing time for study and learning. The study resulted in nine recommendations, including the following: (1) allocate at least 1 hour of on-the-job time per week for collective and individual learning; (2) create a learning environment within the bank's branches; (3) recognize, build on, and provide compensation for workers' informal learning activities; and (4) consult regularly and systematically with branch staff to identify learning and support needs. (Contains 46 references.) (MN)

The extent of employer-supported education and training in Australia was examined by analyzing data from the Training Expenditure Surveys (TES), which gathered information from firms, and the Surveys of Education and Training Experience (SETE), which gathered information from workers. The TES showed an approximately 10% decline in the hours of external training provided by employers from 1993 to 1996, whereas the SETE showed a more than 80% increase in the hours of employer-supported external training received by workers over a similar period. The different results yielded by the two surveys were attributed to the different definitions of external training in the two surveys and the different behavior of the components of external education and training. The SETE showed a substantial expansion of external training but a decline in the level of employer support for education. However, because the apparent expansion in external training has occurred through an increase in employer support for fees and materials rather than through provision of paid study leave, participation in employer-supported external training may well have increased while the hours of training for which employees are paid by employers has declined. Thus, the findings of TES and SETE do not negate one another. (MN)

This report summarizes the problems schools are encountering as they try to use data to gauge the effectiveness of standards-based education, accountability efforts, and school reform. It provides an overview of the education market, discusses the strengths and weaknesses of available software, and describes systems used by 19 states. The article looks at the use of technology in schools and the market opportunities that are developing as more school systems are recognizing the importance of administration software. It compares the various types of software applications that are available in the administrative technology market, most of which can be categorized as student-information systems, school-administrative systems, or classroom-management tools. These kinds of software are being driven by macro trends resulting from the need to evaluate changes in standards, accountability, school improvement, and technology. The report states that this market reality will push school administrators toward the use of products that can meet all these needs in one streamlined system. It discusses some of the companies that dominate the market and supplies the names of some of the smaller companies that offer student-information systems. The report concludes with a short review of the states that use integrated administrative software. (Contains 17 references.) (RJM)

Immediately after the events of September 11, the US was stunned by horror and disbelief, angry at the perpetrators of such awful violence, puzzled by the country's inability to recognize itself in the eyes of the world, and eager to learn more about other cultures from which it felt so alien. Our college campuses reflected this range of responses. At their first meetings of the academic year, members of NERCHE's Think Tanks, who represent faculty and administrators in New England, and SAGES (Senior Academics Guiding Educational Strategies), retired presidents and provosts, described their reactions and the range of responses campus.

Canadians' employment and working patterns were examined by analyzing the 1998 survey called New Approaches to Lifelong Learning and other recent surveys by Statistics Canada. "Work" was defined as comprising household labor, community volunteer activities, and paid employment, and "learning" was defined as comprising informal learning activities, initial formal schooling, and adult education courses and programs. The data indicated that Canadian adults generally spent as much time in unpaid household and community work as in paid employment. Canadians were extensively involved in learning throughout their lives. According to their self-reports, Canadian adults devoted an average of 15 hours each week to informal learning activities related to their paid employment, household duties, volunteer community work, and other general interests. Those in the labor force averaged 6 hours each week in job-related informal learning pursuits. A generally positive association between the amount of time people spend in paid employment, household labor, and community work and the time spent in work-related informal learning was found. Employment-related informal learning was more extensive than course-based training across nearly all employment statuses and occupational groups. At least 20% of the employed labor force saw itself as having skill levels exceeding those required by their jobs. (Contains 27 tables and 152 references.) (MN)

This report describes and evaluates the methods and procedures used for the field test of the Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:2000/01). The B&B:2000/01 field test included important changes from previous B&B surveys (conducted in 1994 and 1997) in its sample design and collection of data. The introductory chapter describes the background, purposes, schedule, and products of the B&B:2000/01 study and the unique purposes of the field test. In chapter 2, the field test design and method are described. Overall outcomes of data collection, as well as results of special studies, are presented in chapter 3. Chapter 4 documents the quality of the data collected, and chapter 5 summarizes the major recommendations for changes in design for the full-scale study. Materials used during the field test are provided as five appendixes to the report, and cited, where appropriate, in the text. (Contains 33 tables and 6 figures.) (SLD)

Many imputation techniques and imputation software packages have been developed over the years to deal with missing data. Different methods may work well under different circumstances, and it is advisable to conduct a sensitivity analysis when choosing an imputation method for a particular survey. This study reviewed about 30 imputation methods and 5 imputation software packages. Eleven of the most popular imputation methods were evaluated through a Monte Carlo simulation study. The first four chapters of this report are methodology discussions based on a review of the literature on imputation. Chapter 1, describes about 30 commonly used methods, including those used by the National Center for Education Statistics, and discusses their strengths and weaknesses. Chapter 2 focuses on five software packages for imputation, Nonresponse bias correction through imputation is addressed in chapter 3, and variance estimation with imputed data and multiple imputation inference is discussed in chapter 4. Chapter 5 reports the results of the simulation study, which evaluated 11 methods according to 8 evaluation criteria for 4 types of distributions, 5 types of missing mechanisms, and 4 types of missing rates. (Contains 31 tables and 45 references.) (SLD)

This report describes the imputation procedures used to deal with missing data in the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), the only current National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) dataset that contains scores from cognitive tests given the same set of students at multiple time points. As is inevitable, cognitive test data are missing for some individuals in each test round, especially the second followup (F2). The NCES has decided to use imputation to reduce the bias caused by nonresponse. The first step was to conduct a simulation study to evaluate two different imputation procedures currently used at NCES: the model-based random imputation method (PROC IMPUTE) and a within-class random hot-deck imputation. Simulation findings confirmed that PROC IMPUTE performed better. The second step involved using PROC IMPUTE to impute missing F2 test scores in four subject areas: mathematics, reading, science, and history/citizenship/geography. Results provide end users with complete cognitive test data for both cross-sectional and longitudinal research. (Contains 18 tables, 4 figures, and 7 references.) (SLD)

An analysis examined changes in participation in vocational education and training and in schooling and higher education in Australia. It drew principally on data from the Youth in Transitions study. Participation estimates were based on information from four cohorts of young people. Members of each cohort initially completed multiple-choice tests in reading comprehension and mathematics and then completed an annual mail questionnaire focused on participation in education and the labor market. Participation was compared when members of the cohorts were aged 19 in 1980, 1984, 1989, and 1994. Types of educational participation identified were year 12 completion, technical and further education (TAFE), apprenticeship, higher education, and post-school education and training. Results indicated substantial growth in most forms of post-compulsory education; a year 12 completion rate that more than doubled in the 14 years spanned by the cohorts; substantial increase in participation in TAFE programs; declining participation in apprenticeships; and nearly doubled participation in higher education. In a reversal, in the most recent cohort, young people from blue-collar families were more likely to participate in TAFE than those from other families. The wealth profile of apprentices declined marginally over time. In the mid-1990s, young people from the wealthiest quartile were somewhat less likely to enter apprenticeships. (YBL)

Anticipated demographic changes in the United States adult population in the decade between the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) of 1992 and the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), which is scheduled for 2002, were reviewed. Next, the implications of those changes for the NALS and NAAL were analyzed. The analysis focused on births, deaths, and international migration. Next, a demographic model of adult literacy proficiency was described that links changes in literacy proficiency to compositional and maturational changes in the adult population. Composition components were defined as changes over time in membership in the target population, whereas maturational components were defined as changes over time in the literacy proficiencies of given individuals who are in the target population at both time points. The model predicted increases over the decade in the mean literacy proficiency of both the foreign- and native-born adult populations and decreases in the percentages of each that are performing at the lowest level. (Eight implications of the model for the NAAL methodology were discussed, including implications related to the following issues: parallel population coverage in the NALS and NAAL assessments; adequate representation of minority and immigrant groups; and working with populations having limited English proficiency.) (MN)

This paper presents information from the ongoing research program, Monitoring the Future. The program is designed to: (1) monitor drug use and potential explanatory factors among American secondary school students, and other young adults; (2) distinguish which of three different kinds of change--maturational, historical, and/or cohort are occurring for various types of drug use; and (3) study causes, consequences, and maturational patterns associated with these different types of changes in drug use. Some 50,000 secondary school students in 435 schools are surveyed annually for the program. A follow-up survey of graduated classes yields a young adult sample of about 11,000 respondents in the age range of 19 to 32. The paper is divided into two parts. Part 1 contains the theoretical background and conceptual framework, and Part 2 elaborates on the ten objectives, their rationale, and presents a synopsis of progress to date. Some objectives include monitoring drug use and potential explanations in grades 8, 10, 12, among young adults and with ages 34 and 40; distinguishing period, age, and cohort effects; explaining secular trends and cohort differences; assessing the consequences of drug use; studying frequent or heavy-users; studying various under-represented groups; and the methodological, policy and other contributions to the field. (Contains 527 references.) (JDM)

This report summarizes efforts by the state of New York to ensure the accuracy and integrity of data reported by school districts. The Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) has taken the lead in reviewing these data, focusing on the uses of attendance and enrollment data and making recommendations for improvement in state systems and local practices. Recent investigative reports described serious problems with educational data reported by the New York City school system, including incidents of fraud and abuse. These reports support findings in OSC audits and reinforce the need to improve procedures and internal controls for school-district data. School district data submissions provide the information used in the state's school district "report cards" and other statewide reports that evaluate school performance and provide accountability. The lack of adequate controls of these data is important as a matter of accountability, but also in regard to compulsory attendance laws. The report provides a summary of two audits and a followup review of district data, along with recommended changes in procedures. The recommendations encompass a broad range of data-integrity issues and provide a comprehensive framework for improvement. An appendix contains information on the impact of attendance and enrollment on state-aid payments. (RJM)

The contribution of occupational profiling to explaining and forecasting job satisfaction were analyzed by using data on job satisfaction for 33,249 workers from waves 1-7 of the British Household Panel Survey. Overall job satisfaction gradients were defined for major and minor groups of occupations in the United Kingdom's Standard Occupational Classification. The level and congruence of the material aspects and quality of work life aspects of job satisfaction in individual occupational unit groups (OUGs) were profiled. Stark contrasts emerged between fortunate OUGs, where levels of both modes of satisfaction are high, and disfavored OUGs, where both are low. Although the analysis results were consistent with earlier accounts of alienation in industrial settings, the findings required more comprehensive forms of explanation involving established findings about the correlates of job satisfaction. Regression analysis demonstrated that, in many cases, levels of satisfaction in OUGs could be accounted for largely in terms of individual and organizational variables. However, significant occupational effects remained for a large minority of OUGs. Industry was discounted as a minor influence on job satisfaction. The scope for more general explanations of job satisfaction in terms of relative deprivation was suggested, and methods for predicting trends in job satisfaction were outlined. (Contains 22 tables and 46 references.) (Author/MN)

This study examines some of the literature on college faculty supply and demand and asks whether it is possible to adopt assumptions from the previous research to construct a complex model of faculty workforce using the available data. The study involved a comprehensive review of the literature; numerous interviews conducted by telephone, e-mail, and in person to discuss available datasets and various approaches to faculty supply and demand; analysis of 14 national datasets; and, finally, in-depth review of four datasets to assess their utility for modeling. The model developed had the following components: enrollment (undergraduate, masters, doctoral) broken out by gender and ethnicity; degrees (masters and doctoral); postdoctoral appointments; nonfaculty research staff; faculty population (full-time, instructional, research, and public service) broken out by rank within tenure status by discipline and by tier of institution, and including retirement rates, quit rates, and mortality by discipline; faculty workload for full-time faculty; and research activity, including the need for post-doctoral students, nonfaculty research staff, and degree productivity. This study suggests that it is impossible to construct a complex model of faculty supply and demand with currently available data. The report concludes with recommendations for improved data collection. (Contains 31 references.) (CH)

Data from the Work History and Attitudes survey of the Social Change and Economic Life research initiative (SCELI) enquiry of 1986-1989 and the first wave of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) were analyzed to determine their continuity and comparability with regard to employee attitudes in general and job satisfaction and work centrality in particular. The study revealed a high degree of comparability between the two data sets and in the results obtained when they are used. However, several difficulties in comparing the two data sets were also identified. The SCELI was credited with providing good indicators of both human capital ("own-skill") and job skill and for providing extensive details about the technical milieu of work and the work organization, which were deemed good control variables. BHPS was found to offer excellent data on human capital, particularly on recently acquired technical training and vocational and other education. However, BHPS's direct measures of job skill proved minimal. An imputation process was suggested as one way of resolving this difficulty. The material offered by BHPS on partnership and household structures was concluded to be so admirable as to partly compensate for its lack of workplace and organizational data. (Thirteen figures/tables are included. Five additional tables and a comment on the expressive work ethic are appended.) (Author/MN)

Issues related to assessing school-to-work transitions in the United States were discussed in the context of selected findings from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), a longitudinal data set characterizing 9,964 of 12,686 of young people who were 14-22 years old when first interviewed in 1979. The first section of the paper describes the NLSY. The middle section presents the measurement issues and accompanying analyses. Specific examples examined include whether to measure outcomes by year out of school or by age, looking specifically at weeks worked and weeks unemployed; when to measure the beginning of the career, the pitfalls in using the current measures available in prospective data collection, and issues regarding defining a successful transition. The final section of the paper discusses the data necessary to support the types of analyses presented in the earlier sections and data for assessing school-to-work transition. A new data set being started in the United States is described which attempts to meet the needs suggested in this paper. (Twelve tables and 22 references are included.) (MN)

This conference paper presents a description of how faculty workloads are assessed for fiscal and other purposes at Northern Arizona University (NAU). Following a discussion of workload issues, the paper examines: (1) definition of workload; (2) methodology for data collection; (3) development of a faculty full-time equivalency database and two linking databases on faculty demographics and course offerings; (4) usefulness of the workload data for assessing instructional productivity, instructional activity, noninstructional activity, and other areas in which the data can be used; (5) challenges and pitfalls; and (6) alternative methods such as self-reported surveys, time-based analysis and expectation/accomplishment documents. A conclusion lists elements that are important to consider in developing a system similar to the NAU system. (JB)

This working paper, part of an ongoing national study, presents preliminary analysis of public service professionalism among state public administrators in many states on the basis of data already produced by a continuing survey research project. Information about the data source and sample profiles are provided. Additionally, the research objectives for the paper are listed, and the questionnaire that was used to assess the research objectives is provided. The paper addresses the following questions: (1) What are the public service value orientations of MPA (Masters in Public Administration) and CPM (Certified Public Administration) graduates who are currently employed as state administrators? (2) What are the professional behavioral dimensions of these administrators? (3) What are the orientations of these administrators toward public Administration education? and (4) Do administrators with MPA/CPM education significantly differ from state administrators without compatible training/education? Results of the analyses are reported under the following headings: Value Orientations of MPA and CPM Graduates; Professional Behavioral Attributes among MPA and CPM Graduates; Public Administration Professionalism among MPA and CPM Graduates; and the Differences between the General Sample, MPA, and CPM Graduates. Contains 21 tables and 105 references. (GLR)

This qualitative study attempted to answer the question of what constitutes a collegial environment. New faculty members (N=258) at five institutions were surveyed and 92 new faculty were interviewed. The study utilized a methodology of quantifying data from interviews, the Rasch analytic technique, in which the definition of collegiality was separated from the rating of how collegial an environment was considered to be, thereby providing a common definition of collegiality on which faculty could rate their institutions. The study found that no respondents rated their institutions as uncollegial, a few rated them as very collegial and most rated them as average. The characteristic of whether new or other faculty initiated interactions was not perceived as related to collegiality. No gender differences in perceived collegiality were found. By rank, instructors and new faculty at institutions with no ranks rank rated their institutions as more collegial than those who were either tenured on the tenure track. New faculty at 2-year institutions rated their institutions as more collegial than those at 4-year institutions. The collegial environment was characterized by intellectual support and a sense of community, with support of new faculty's scholarly endeavors and reciprocal interactions between faculty members. (PRW)

This paper considers the feasibility of linking a student data sample with the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) teacher and administrative data. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has from time to time considered linking their student-based elementary and secondary surveys to the school- and teacher-based surveys. Speculation on the feasibility of linking datasets is of particular importance in the current climate of budgetary constraints and distrust of federal data collection. The rationale for linking a student data collection in SASS is discussed, and some options for collecting these data are explored, whether linking the National Assessment of Educational Progress to the SASS or linking a new National Education Longitudinal Study with SASS. The argument for attaching a longitudinal component to the SASS response rests on several premises. Doing this could measure the types of student data deemed most worthwhile, while satisfying the two criteria for sensible merger: producing some cost benefit and engendering an analytical payoff. Of the various options available, merging a new National Education Longitudinal Study and the SASS provides the most benefit to the whole educational policy community. (Contains six references.) (SLD)

A project has been developed to advance the capabilities of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to support the dissemination of linked data from multiple surveys, multiple components within a survey, and multiple time points. An essential element of this study is the development of a software prototype system to facilitate NCES data customers' access to linked historical data (i.e., a data warehouse). Following an introduction, section 2 summarizes research in data warehousing. Section 3 documents the range of potential linkages using historical NCES survey data, describes recent linking projects, and explains the selection of data for the warehousing project. Section 4 addresses the objective of the data warehouse, explains metadata, and provides a description of the data model developed to represent multiple years of the Common Core of Data district level data set. Section 5 describes the steps and tools used in implementation of the model into a prototype warehouse, and section 6 contains conclusions based on this study. Section 7 contains selected references. Three appendixes contain supplemental information about the interviews, data imputation, and sample screens from the software. (Contains 5 tables, 3 figures, and 35 references.) (SLD)