EXAMPLE 3.4 Can We Compete Globally?

A lack of reading skills has been cited as one factor that limits our ability to compete in the global economy.⁷ Various efforts have been made to improve this situation. One of these is the Reading Recovery (RR) program. RR has specially trained teachers work one-on-one with at-risk first-grade students to help them learn to read. A study was designed to examine the relationship between the RR teachers’ beliefs about their ability to motivate students and the progress of the students whom they teach.⁸ The National Data Evaluation Center (NDEC) website (ndec.us) says that there are 6112 RR teachers. The researchers send a questionnaire to a random sample of 200 of these. The population consists of all 6112 RR teachers, and the sample is the 200 that were randomly selected.