Howard Bloom

Robin Jacob

Pei Zhu

Zeyu Xu

This paper provides practical guidance for researchers who are designing and analyzing studies that randomize schools--which comprise three levels of clustering (students in classrooms in schools)--to measure intervention effects on student academic outcomes when information on the middle level (classrooms) is missing. This situation arises frequently in practice because many available data sets identify the schools that students attend but not the classrooms in which they are taught. Do studies conducted under these circumstances yield results that are substantially different from what they would have been if this information had been available? The paper first considers this problem in the context of planning a school-randomized study based on preexisting two-level information about how academic outcomes for students vary across schools and across students within schools (but not across classrooms in schools). The paper next considers this issue in the context of estimating intervention effects from school-randomized studies. Findings are based on empirical analyses of four multisite data sets using academic outcomes for students within classrooms within schools. The results indicate that in almost all situations one will obtain nearly identical results whether or not the classroom or middle level is omitted when designing or analyzing studies. Three-Level vs. Two-Level Model Comparisons: Estimated R-Squared for School- and Student-Level Covariates are appended. (Contains 9 tables and 2 footnotes.).

Designing and Analyzing Studies that Randomize Schools to Estimate Intervention Effects on Student Academic Outcomes Without Classroom-Level Information

Matthew Fisher

Daniel Alexander

This is a unique book about Intellectual Property. It is aimed not only at law students studying the subject but also at interested users of IP - business people, inventors, scientists, designers and the like. It provides an outline of the basic legal principles which underpin and reguilate the subject, educatuing the reader as to the shape of the law. However, critically, it also gives insight into how the system actually works. You cannot understand chess by merely learning the rules - you also have to know how the game is played: so too with Intellectual Property. To achieve its object the authors deliberately avoid technicalities: keeping things simple, yet direct. There are no footnotes to distract. Although cases are, inevitably, referred to, they are explained in a pithy, accessible manner. The authors try wherever possible to be both serious and light-hearted at the same time. All major areas of IP - patents, trade marks, copyright and designs - are covered, along with briefer treatment of other rights and subjects such as breach of confidence, plant varieties and databases. A novice reader of this book should come away both with a clear outline of IP law and a feeling for how it works. Students will be able to put their more detailed study into perspective. Users will be able to understand better how IP affects them and their businesses.

Robin Jacob

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