In 2004 the General Assembly of the State of Ohio (USA) enacted Senate Bill 2, which created the Educator Standards Board "to develop and recommend to the state board of education standards for entering and continuing in the teaching and principalship professions". Since that time the Ohio Department of Education has established a…

This paper argues that the dynamic model of educational effectiveness can be used to establish stronger links between educational effectiveness research (EER) and school improvement. It provides research evidence to support the validity of the model. Thus, the importance of using the dynamic model to establish an evidence-based and theory-driven…

The TRAVORS projects, supported by the European Union's Lifelong Learning Programme, ran between 2008 and 2012. Their object was to develop training programmes for disability employment practitioners across nine countries based on proven approaches both to vocational rehabilitation and to skills training. The second of the two projects aimed to…

Each year a great many evaluations are conducted of international development efforts around the world. These development evaluations study projects, programs, country-wide portfolios, policy reform efforts, and other topics of interest to funders, governments, program managers, and other involved stakeholders. Although some of these evaluations…

The aim of this study was to develop and validate an assessment tool for research consent competence in older participants. A four-item instrument was developed to assess the capacity of the older adults to consent to research. Data were obtained from 203 nursing home residents from two facilities and 201 community-dwelling older adults in a…

Objective: This report describes the development and preliminary findings regarding the reliability, validity, and sensitivity of a scale that has been developed to assess practitioners' perceived familiarity with, attitudes about, and implementation of the phases of the evidence-based practice (EBP) process. Method: After a panel of national…

The "PISA 2009 Technical Report" describes the methodology underlying the PISA 2009 survey. It examines additional features related to the implementation of the project at a level of detail that allows researchers to understand and replicate its analyses. The reader will find a wealth of information on the test and sample design,…

Evaluation reports increasingly document the degree of program implementation, particularly the extent to which programs adhere to prescribed steps and procedures. Many reports are cursory, however, and few, if any, fully portray the long and winding path taken when developing evaluation instruments, particularly observation instruments. In this…

This article presents an approach to systematic reviews that combines the Campbell Collaboration Crime and Justice standards and the realist notion of contexts-mechanisms-outcomes (CMO) configurations. Both approaches have their advantages and drawbacks, and the authors will make a case for combining both approaches to profit from their advantages…

Knowledge about ecology and environmental education (EE) constitutes a basic tool for promoting a sustainable future, and was a target area of the BIOHEAD-Citizen Project. School textbooks were considered as representative sources of evidence in terms of ecology and environmental education, and were used for comparison among the countries…

In this article, we examine a new global studies program that departs from the traditional state-centric approach and uses a geocentric, or earth-centered, approach that emphasizes the roles of individuals, grassroots organizations, cultural groups, and international organizations in an attempt to help students conceptualize global events and…

The characteristics of expert knowledge--interconnectedness, understanding, and ability to transfer--are inextricably linked, a point that is critically important for educators and constitutes a major theme of this paper. This paper explores how an analysis of the architecture of expert knowledge can inform the development of assessments to help…

Although the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 does not specify the primary purpose of the Special Emphasis Program, it is generally categorized as serving a dual function of research/demonstration and service delivery. A General Accounting Office (GAO) review was held to determine the efficiency and effectiveness of the…

This paper provides a brief review of the Lewiston program and evaluates the vocational education project on the basis of the objectives around which it was originally developed. Each of fourteen objectives listed is discussed in terms of how well and effectively the objective was met during the tenure of the project. Major factors considered…

This multimethod study generated and tested a "best evidence" model of school improvement processes (SIP) capable of improving student achievement. Initially developed through the review of a comprehensive body of previous empirical research, the model was further refined through a 2, 5-year longitudinal study in 10 schools. A quantitative test of…