The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evaluates research studies that look at the effectiveness of education programs, products, practices, and policies, which the WWC calls "interventions." Many studies of education interventions make claims about impacts on students' outcomes. Some studies have designs that enable readers to make causal…

In this book the authors explain how to build, and over time improve, the elements of an observation system that equips all observers to identify and develop effective teaching. It is based on the collective knowledge of key partners in the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project--which carried out one of the largest-ever studies of classroom…

In most states, educator evaluation systems are moving toward more frequent and focused evaluations that include educators' contributions to student outcomes such as learning growth. Many states include "Specialized Instructional Support Personnel" (SISP) in their educator evaluation systems, but the measures and methods used to evaluate…

It is a truism of American social policy that our nation has great success generating innovative programs that improve outcomes for participants--but that we are far less effective at moving from small, "boutique" programs into broadly applied solutions that improve the prospects of large numbers of individuals. This is certainly true in…

This technical assistance paper provides guidance to individuals with test administration responsibilities in adult education programs. These policies apply to the approved assessments that programs may use to report educational gains in compliance with the National Reporting System (NRS) requirements. The NRS is the accountability system for the…

Human raters are normally involved in L2 performance assessment; as a result, rater behavior has been widely investigated to reduce rater effects on test scores and to provide validity arguments. Yet raters' cognition and use of rubrics in their actual rating have rarely been explored qualitatively in L2 speaking assessments. In this study three…

In this article, the author writes from the perspective of a community college research practitioner, an institutional researcher whose daily work is intended primarily to affect policies, procedures and understanding of student learning and institutional effectiveness. The audience for this work is composed of faculty, administrators, staff,…

This brief describes different types of evaluations and sets forth five steps for selecting an evaluator that can benefit a program in the long run. It also provides some tips on the cost of evaluations. Evaluation refers to "the process of acquiring and assessing information to provide useful feedback about a program or program activity."…

Inverness Research has served as the external evaluation group for the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession (CSTP) since its inception in 2003. As evaluators, Inverness conceptualizes projects as investments in improvement, and it examines the returns on those investments. The direct services of projects and their immediate outcomes…