Ecological inferences drawn from published aggregate level basic skills achievement reports /
| Main Author: | |
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| Other Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Thesis Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
[College Station, Tex.] :
Hanson,
1980.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Link to OAKTrust copy Link to ProQuest copy |
| Abstract: | This inquiry examines the accuracy of inferences regarding individual students drawn from published basic skills achievement test score reports and explores the actual implications of relying wholly on those aggregate level reports to communicate student achievement to the public. Standardized achievement test results averaged by schools have attained widespread use among large urban school systems as the primary mode of reporting to the public on basic skills. Frequently test data are joined by other aggregate indicators describing the school population as a whole. However, the accuracy of ecological inferences, or relationships regarding individuals derived from aggregate level data, which can be drawn from published urban test score reports has yet to be adequately examined in the literature of educational administration or policy analysis. Moreover, in practice the implications surrounding inferences from aggregate level data are largely ignored, although the ecological inferencing problem has been a focus of social sciences inquiry for three decades. An exploratory case study design is employed in this inquiry to estimate the magnitude of the ecological fallacies problem in one urban school policy setting. Two distinct phases, specification and analysis, summarize the design of the study. The specification phase includes identification of issues in the policy setting, specification of relationships addressed in studies dealing with each issue, and determination of the unique set of relationships associated with the entire range of issues identified. Actual policy reports prepared by a community group or by the school district itself are examined in the specification phase. The analysis phase involves the use of two distinct data sets on students enrolled in Houston elementary schools during the 1966-1977 school year. The first data base is the one provided to the public in aggregate form in the Elementary School Profiles. A second set of information is derived from data collected during the same academic year on a probability sample of students in all of Houston's 169 elementary schools... |
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| Item Description: | Vita. "Major subject: Educational Administration." |
| Physical Description: | xi, 167 leaves : illustrations, graphs ; 29 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (leaves 153-157). |