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In response to No Child Left Behind mandates, budget cuts and various accountability demands aimed at improving programs, colleges and schools of education are in need of practical, quantitative evaluation methods which can be utilized internally to meaningfully examine teacher preparation programs and related coursework. The utility of multiple regression as a tool for linking coursework to teacher certification outcomes was examined in two separate case studies: one examined data from a smaller, private university and the other examined data from a larger public university. Grade inflation, missing or confounding variables, bivariate correlations, beta weights, statistical assumptions, and power were statistical considerations. Results indicated multiple regression can provide meaningful program evaluation information when examining teacher preparation programs where fewer sections of courses are offered, such as at the private university level. Variance associated with multiple course sections being nested in individual courses was believed to interfere with multiple regression results for public university analyses. Methods such as hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) and growth mixture modeling (GMM) may be more appropriate when evaluating teacher preparation programs at larger universities where nested variables are often more prevalent.

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert