The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for collecting, analyzing, and reporting data related to education in the United States and other nations. It fulfills a congressional mandate to collect, collate, analyze, and report full and complete statistics on the condition of education in the United States; conduct and publish reports and specialized analyses of the meaning and significance of such statistics; assist state and local education agencies in improving their statistical systems; and review and report on education activities in foreign countries. NCES activities are designed to address high priority education data needs; provide consistent, reliable, complete, and accurate indicators of education status and trends; and report timely, useful, and high quality data to the U.S. Department of Education, the Congress, the states, other education policymakers, practitioners, data users, and the general public. We strive to make our products available in a variety of formats and in language that is appropriate to a variety of audiences. You, as our customer, are the best judge of our success in communicating information effectively.

To gauge the variability in expert problem-solving strategies for stoichiometry problems, a set of experts in different career tracks were studied with the cohort including 17 graduate students in chemistry, three college chemistry instructors, and seven college graduates working in the industry. The goal of the study was to determine whether variability would be observed based upon experience and career trajectories. The data were collected using interviews and analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively using the COSINE (Coding System for Investigating Sub-problems and Network) method. Although the method was developed for the analysis of undergraduate problem-solving, it appeared to be effective in examining experts’ problem-solving in chemistry as well. The study revealed similar abilities for succeeding at solving a series of problems, but the strategies were variable for the three cohorts of experts. Specifically, the amount of information used to solve the problems differed across the three cohorts with graduate students focusing more upon each of the specific subproblems within each problem compared to industry chemists utilizing the big-picture approach in lieu of breaking down each problem into respective subproblems. Familiarity with the question types and ability to chunk information were common characteristics observed consistently for the expert participants, which is consistent with existing research.