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User's Guide Home 
A Word
About the Data
The 1998 User’s Guide
Given the demands
of this year’s project, every reasonable effort was made to verify data with
individual schools. No amount of waiting would have perfected the quality of data any
further; only by using and publishing it will the collection process and the data itself
improve.
When
is Data Statistically Unreliable?
When a
group of test-takers drops below 10, the results are considered statistically unreliable
and are not reported. Also, when the numbers are small enough, it becomes possible to
identify or to invite guessing as to the achievement results of individual children.
Information Works is about the functioning of schools and
districts; it is not about individual children. Therefore, in Field #4 that shows
"gaps" with disaggregated data, groups with certain characteristics consisting
of less than 10 children were dropped altogether and their results are reported as 0.
Similarly, New Shoreham’s very small classes of test-takers required leaving a number
of blank fields.
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