States and teacher preparation programs across the country are increasingly using a teacher candidate assessment called edTPA. The purpose? To make sure that teacher candidates are ready and able to teach before they begin their careers. The teacher performance assessment requires candidates to compile a portfolio that consists of lesson plans,…

Community-based education programs must demonstrate effectiveness to various funding sources. The pilot study reported here (funded by CYFAR, NIFA, USDA award #2008-41520-04810) had the goal of determining if state level programs with varied curriculum could use a common evaluation tool to demonstrate efficacy. Results in parenting and youth…

Case study teaching had a long tradition in law and business before it made the jump to medical school education in the form of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in the 1970s. Today, both the University of Delaware's Clearinghouse and the University of Buffalo's National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (NCCSTS) have hundreds of cases and…

School-based commercialism exists whenever a district enters into a relationship with a business that provides access to students or staff in exchange for fiscal or in-kind resources (i.e., goods or services). The practice includes business sponsorship of school activities (e.g., sporting events), exclusive agreements (e.g., pouring rights…

Evaluative statements from alumni have legitimacy with both internal and external stakeholders. Thus, alumni studies can provide valuable evidence of institutional effectiveness and lend themselves to both locally designed and commercial survey instruments for data collection. Under ideal conditions, the results of alumni studies equip faculty and…

The Crossroads Survey, an adaptation of the macrostructural accounting techniques, was employed for purposes of testing the community development theory that services are added to communities in the same sequence. Dividing services and amenities into 2 categories (commercial and public/professional), the Crossroads Survey was conducted in Clinton…

Determining the best methods of assessment for a library instruction program in a large research university can be a challenging task. Albert R. Mann Library at Cornell University Library has pilot-tested three methods of formative and summative assessment for its library instruction program--attitudinal, outcomes-based, and gap-measure--and…

This collection of essays explores various arts education-specific evaluation tools, as well as considers Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and the inclusion of people with disabilities in the design of evaluation instruments and strategies. Prominent evaluators Donna M. Mertens, Robert Horowitz, Dennie Palmer Wolf, and Gail Burnaford are…

Background: This study assessed whether data-collection formats, computerized versus paper-and-pencil, affect response patterns and descriptive statistics for adolescent health assessment surveys. Youth were assessed as part of a health risk reduction program. Methods: Baseline data from 1131 youth were analyzed. Participants completed the…

This study explored the efforts of shared decision-making teams (SDM) that were created by a state mandate and charged with improving student achievement in New York state. For example, under the mandate, a shared decision-making team composed of representatives from the administration, the faculty, and parents must be present in each public…

Reports results of a preliminary evaluation of the New Connections Program, which provides free dial-up connections for certain kinds of institutions to NYSERNet (i.e., a regional computer network in New York State) and describes a plan for full evaluation of the program. The interview schedule, user log, and questionnaire are appended. (11…

Interactions of potential loss, time, and self-efficacy on the need for evaluation information for decision making were investigated for 259 managers/nurses (60 percent survey response rate) of home health agencies in New York State. Those with high self-efficacy needed less information in situations of high potential loss and inadequate time.…

This paper will describe the Teaching and Learning Informational Technology Process (TLITP). Before present day strategies, teaching and learning relied on transformations based on quantification to measure performance. The process will be a non-linear three construct of teacher, student and community. Emphasizing old practices now is the…

This paper describes a project designed to evaluate the New York State Adoption Exchange, a program providing information on adoptable children and families approved for adoption across the state of New York. The first section of the paper describes the rationale for the development of the evaluation project. The second section traces the problems…

The multidimensional concept of health status (complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity) was applied to migrant farmworkers, in an attempt to propose appropriate measures of the three dimensions of health and general health perceptions (GHP) of past, present and future health status. Data…