Good evaluation requires that evaluation efforts themselves be evaluated. Many things can and often do go wrong in evaluation work. Accordingly, it is necessary to check evaluations for problems such as bias, technical error, administrative difficulties, and misuse. Such checks are needed both to improve ongoing evaluation activities and to assess…

This monograph identifies, analyzes, and judges 22 evaluation approaches used in program evaluation. Two approaches, labeled psuedoevaluations, are politically oriented and often used to misrepresent a program's value. The remaining 20, judged legitimate, are categorized by their orientations, and rated for their value. (SLD)

The concerns postmodernists have about evaluations, especially in education, are explored. Postmodernist and standards-based perspectives on evaluation are described, and specific questions about the role of postmodernism in evaluation are addressed from a standards-based perspective. (SLD)

Provides an overview of evaluation checklists and describes 10 checklists for program, personnel, and product evaluations that were developed to be available to evaluators through the World Wide Web. (SLD)

The past few years have seen efforts in several countries and a wide range of disciplines to adopt and apply existing professional standards for guiding and judging evaluation services and/or develop new standards. Some of the efforts have drawn from the work and products of the North American Joint Committee on Standards for Educational…

The author, chair of the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation, compares the Evaluation Research Society (ERS) and Joint Committee Standards and proposes that ERS and the Joint Committee consider merging their standard-setting efforts. (Author/LC)

Draws lessons in contracting for evaluations from the 1995 evaluation of a U.S. Marine Corps personnel evaluation system and a 1991 evaluation of the procedures for setting cutting scores of the National Assessment Governing Board of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. These national, politically sensitive evaluations provide lessons…

Advocates and presents an illustrative structure for interdisciplinary Ph.D. programs in evaluation. Posits that the introduction of such programs will give prospective students options through which they can gain the knowledge, skills, and experience needed to conduct evaluations. Describes the interdisciplinary evaluation program at Western…

Serious issues in empowerment evaluation are articulated to help ensure that this enthusiastically presented concept will not mislead evaluators and result in lowering the field's professional standards. Analysis and recommendations are provided for the adoption, development, and implementation of an objectivist evaluation that conforms to…

Evaluation of the on-the-job performance of school district superintendents as they implement school board policy is explored, drawing on the results of a federally supported project on improvement of administrator performance evaluation that is part of the work of the Center for Research on Educational Accountability and Teacher Evaluation. (SLD)

This introduction provides an overview of the eight other articles in the special issue and summarizes the objectivist concept of educational evaluation that the author recognizes as growing from the work of the Center for Research on Educational Accountability and Teacher Evaluation (CREATE). (SLD)

Eight reasons are proposed to support the argument that it should be possible to move toward a consensus about educational evaluation. The eight standards of the American Association of School Administrators are explored as starting points for developing a sound evaluation system and procedures. (SLD)

This article describes the Self-Assessment of Program Evaluation Expertise instrument and procedure developed to help participants assess their learning gains in a 3-week evaluation institute. Participants completed the instrument in a pre- and posttest format. To reduce both the threat of embarrassment from individual results and the temptation…

Previous articles in this issue have provided the background for the new model for superintendent evaluation presented. The model recognizes the many facets of the superintendent's professional activities and attempts to encompass the evaluation of the superintendent's total performance. The flexible model will take on different forms as…

Point of entry problems are faced by evaluators when asked to start an evaluation at an inappropriate time or to perform an inappropriate study. The fundamental purpose of evaluation is to help improve services. Guidelines are presented for choosing when to do a context, input, process, or product evaluation. (GDC)