Imagine a student using an intelligent tutoring system. A researcher records the correctness and time of each of your attempts at solving a math problem, nothing more. With no names, no birth dates, no connections to the school, you would think it impossible to track the answers back to the class. Yet, class sections have been identified with no…

Few arguments about education are as effective at galvanizing public attention and motivating political action as those that compare the performance of students with their counterparts in other countries and that connect academic achievement to economic performance. Because data from international large-scale assessments (ILSA) have a powerful…

Test developers are responsible to define how test scores should be interpreted and used. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) directed the Secretary of Education to use results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to confirm the proficiency scores from state developed tests. There are two sets of federal definitions…

This paper attempts to define evaluation use and manipulable variables related to it. Approaches to defining evaluation use have included typologies inventorying kinds of evaluation use, threshold criteria defining accepted levels of evidence, construct or operational definitions, and dependence on the perspective of the decision maker. None of…

This paper presents an evaluation of the National Network of Eisenhower Regional Consortia and Clearinghouse. A symposium presentation was chosen to report the consortia's contribution to the improvement of mathematics and science education. The presentation is divided into four sections, each of which was presented separately by one of the panel…

Areas of evaluation are identified in which the formative/summative distinction appears inadequate: (1) knowledge-generating evaluations aimed at conceptual use; (2) developmental evaluation; and (3) use of evaluation to support intervention or empower participants. An argument is also made for the effectiveness of feedback that cannot be…

Promotion of evaluation as a profession in Australia and New Zealand is discussed. The profession is challenged to make a commitment to utility, quality products and processes, and the development of skilled, trained professionals. Ways of overcoming barriers to the establishment of evaluation as a profession are outlined. (TJH)

Field experiences with external (qualitative) evaluation audits based on the work of E. G. Guba and Y. S. Lincoln (1981, 1985) are detailed, including evaluation contexts and purposes, procedures, and findings. Such audits represent a viable meta-evaluative tool for assessing the quality of naturalistic evaluation results. (SLD)

The majority of "The Standards for Evaluations of Programs, Projects, and Materials" (SEPPM) turns out to be helpful for Israeli evaluators in checking their working plans and reviewing evaluation studies. Nevertheless, the lack of overriding rationale or of theoretical anchors for the SEPPM creates difficulties in adapting them to local…

The construct "multicultural validity" is proposed as the vehicle for organizing concerns about pluralism and diversity in evaluation and as a way to reflect on the cultural boundness of evaluation. It should be conceptualized as a central dimension of validity and a viable focus of concern in evaluation theory. (SLD)

Evaluators frequently experience the dilemma of how to empower a program staff if the staff and other stakeholders are compelled to participate in activities that they don't believe they need or believe may actually harm the program. A framework is proposed to empower program staff and other stakeholders and to reduce potential dilemmas. The…

The Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project (LAAMP) has several initiatives, including Parents as Learning Partners (PLP), that attempt to assist parents and schools to work collaboratively in order to increase student achievement. Using PLP, one of LAAMP's major parent engagement initiatives, as a model, this paper discusses using both…

In this case study, the ways in which evaluation, the decision maker, and the change process influenced the use or non-use of federally mandated evaluations of vocational and technical programs were studied for Maryland since 1979. A Discrepancy Analysis was used to determine whether the intended benefits from evaluation implementation and…

The extent to which evaluation and auditing have converged on procedures in recent years and the extent to which they remain different are examined in the five chapters of this special issue. Different emphases, the question of collaboration with the subjects of inquiry, and issues of routinized performance are explored. (SLD)

A participatory model in evaluation is presented as an extension of the stakeholder-based model focusing on the increased participation of primary users. Twenty-six empirical studies that support an organizational learning justification of the model are reviewed and classified. Requirements for participatory evaluation are discussed. (SLD)