Schools and Data

Theodore B. Creighton is currently a Professor and Program Leader in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Virginia Tech. Prior to joining the faculty at Virginia Tech, he served as Director of the Center for Research and Doctoral Studies in Educational Leadership at Sam Houston State University and as a Professor in Educational Leadership at Idaho State University. His background includes teaching at all grade levels in Washington, D.C.; Cleveland, Ohio; and Los Angeles, California. His administrative experience includes serving as principal and superintendent in both Fresno and Kern Counties, California. He holds a BS degree in teacher education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a master's degree in educational administration from California State University Long Beach, and a doctorate from the University of California Davis. Though active in many professional organizations, he devotes considerable time to his role as Executive Director of the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration. He also serves as a member of the National Policy Board for Educational Administration (NPBEA), and as a Stafford Faculty Fellow for the National Institute on Leadership, Disabilities and Students Placed at Risk (NILDSPAR). He recently was appointed as Project Director of the Connexions Knowledge Base Project, an international initiative in collaboration with Rice University charged with assembling the knowledge base in educational administration. His research includes examining the forces of the school principalship, and he is widely published in the area of schools with alternative forms of school leadership.

Preface Acknowledgments About the Authors 1. The Role of Data Analysis in the Lives of School Leaders 2. Getting Started 3. Collecting and Organizing Data 4. Correlation: My GRE Score Is Not Good Enough for Harvard! 5. Introduction to Regression 6. Formulating Research Questions and Comparison of Means 7. The Independent-Samples t Test 8. Analysis of Variance: The Difference Between Two or More Sample Means 9. Analysis of Variance: Repeated Measures 10. Two-Way Analysis of Variance: Two Independent Variables 11. What If No Mean Scores? The Chi-Square Test for Goodness of Fit 12. The Other "Q" 13. Putting It All Together: An Evidence-Based Practice Field Resource A. Music Correlation Resource B. The t Distribution Table Resource C. The F Distribution Table Resource D. The Chi-Square Distribution Table Resource E. Horizon High School Data References Index

"Real-world examples accompany step-by-step procedures for collecting, organizing, and using data to provide leaders with more effective decision-making tools. A 'must' for educators and administrators in school settings." -- California Bookwatch, October 2006