In this wide-ranging interview with Educational Leadership, Stanford University Professor of Education Linda Darling-Hammond discusses the kind of preparation and support new teachers need to survive their critical first years in the classroom. Among her central recommendations are more intensive mentoring that lasts through the first year of…

To improve an ongoing training session, the author suggests holding 20- to 30-minute evaluation meetings at the end of each day. Trainers and representative trainees identify learning problems, air issues, and propose modifications for the next class or session. (SK)

Addresses issues and methodologies for the assessment and promotion of quality of life (QOL) of people with intellectual disabilities. Considers objective and subjective components of QOL, both process-centered and outcome-centered approaches to the assessment of QOL, the difficulties of eliciting subjective QOL information from this population,…

Professionally, school librarians are faced with an explosion of choices--search engines, online catalogs, media types, subscription databases, and Web tools--all requiring scrutiny, evaluation, and selection. In turn, this support "stuff" forms a basis for making additional choices about how and what they teach and what they assess. Whereas once…

Responds to previous two articles on session impact in counseling process research. Notes that Session Impacts Scale and Session Evaluation Questionnaire have great potential as research tools. Discusses issues of retest reliability, connection of session-level measures to research strategies based on other units of analyses, and suggested uses of…

Can this evaluation be saved? More precisely, can this evaluation be saved in such a way that both evaluator and client feel satisfied that their points of view were respected and both agree that the evaluation itself provides valid information obtained in a principled manner? Because the scenario describes a preliminary discussion and no contract…

This introductory column on assistive technology (AT) explains key concepts including what assistive technology is, the relationship between AT services and outcomes associated with AT use, the meaning of "outcome," differing outcomes for various stakeholders, and repeated measures of performance with and without AT. It also identifies Web sites…

This introductory chapter to this theme issue on job satisfaction among faculty and staff first reviews the faculty satisfaction literature and then discusses a conceptual model of faculty job satisfaction based on six life event "triggers" and three mediators of job satisfaction. Reviews how each trigger affects college professors and offers data…

Arguing that user studies and performance measures provide two major approaches to evaluating the effectiveness of library services, this occasional paper presents an overview of the literature, examines the goals and approaches in user studies and performance measures, and provides suggestions for increasing the potential benefits of both by…

The current state of information retrieval (IR) evaluation is reviewed with criticisms directed at the available test collections and the research and evaluation methodologies used, including precision and recall rates for online searches and laboratory tests not including real users. Automatic text retrieval systems are also discussed. (32…

Describes two studies conducted at Ball State University (Indiana) that identified major dimensions of distance learner satisfaction with interactive, televised courses. The use of the Telecourse Evaluation Questionnaire and factor analysis are explained, and implications of the dimensions identified for administrators and researchers are…

Examines the impact of online systems designed to be searched by end users on the process of database and product evaluation. Two testing methods, beta tests and user surveys, are evaluated, and possible solutions to testing problems are suggested. (CLB)

Recommends a model for school/curriculum evaluation at the district level that views the different levels of schooling as a continuum of learning. Explains a typical K-12 evaluation schedule using a 5-year cycle. Offers quotes from administrators who had participated in K-12 evaluation. (DMM)

This paper argues that many social validity processes in applied behavior analysis are actually measuring consumer satisfaction and not the habilitative validity of goals, procedures, or outcomes. The term "habilitative validation" is proposed to replace social validity, and use of more objective assessment methods is encouraged.…

Advocates the use of the Total Quality Management (TQM) model for libraries to survive financially and to retain their customers. An award for library quality based on the Malcolm Baldridge Award is proposed to enable institutions to use an evaluation procedure that rewards a commitment to continuous improvement. (Contains five references.) (EAM)