Erin Stafford

Most state departments of education across the U.S. require or recommend that districts use a home language survey as the first step in a multi-step process for identifying students who qualify for English learner student services. However, existing home language surveys may not reveal accurate information about students' language or students' exposure to English language and literacy and, therefore, can actually contribute to the misidentification of English learner students. In response to ...

This guide describes a five-step collaborative process that educators can use with other educators, researchers, and content experts to write or adapt questions and develop surveys for education contexts. This process allows educators to leverage the expertise of individuals within and outside of their organization to ensure a high-quality survey instrument that meets the policy or practice goals of the organization. Examples from collaborative survey development projects are highlighted for ...

Student enrollment in online courses has increased in the past 15 years and continues to grow. However, little is known about students' education experiences or online course outcomes. These are areas of particular interest to the Midwest Virtual Education Research Alliance, whose goal is to understand how to support student success in online courses. Members of the alliance partnered with Regional Educational Laboratory Midwest to develop and conduct this study on how students engage in onli...

REL Midwest, in partnership with the Midwest Virtual Education Research Alliance, analyzed the results of a survey administered to Wisconsin Virtual School teachers about the training in which they participated related to online instruction, the challenges they encounter while teaching online, and the type of training they thought would help them address those challenges. REL Midwest researchers and Virtual Education Research Alliance members collaborated to develop the survey based on items ...

As the use of online courses in high schools increases rapidly across the United States, schools are using courses from a multitude of sources to achieve a variety of educational goals. Policies and practices for monitoring student progress and success in online courses are also diverse. Yet few states formally track or report student participation in online learning. Iowa and Wisconsin are among the states that do not track such information. This study analyzed data from a survey developed t...