We are all part of different communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) that impact who it is possible for us to be and become. Through the process of self-study described in this paper, we seek to understand our personal experiences within a particular teacher education program, but also offer insight into the social and political complexities of…

The reliability of evaluators' judgments was investigated, using a discrepancy evaluation model within a program evaluation context. Two research problems were addressed: the degree of evaluator reliability in detecting and rating problems in federal educational project planning, management, and evaluation; and the relationship between inter-judge…

Because there appears to be a need for the facilitation of planning in elementary schools, the Center for the Study of Evaluation has established programs to provide for people in schools the knowledge and skills they need to do local program planning and evaluation. One of these programs is the self-instructional, self-contained Program Planning…

Planning the activities for an instructional development unit and evaluating how well it has performed requires a set of standards against which the unit can be compared. This paper proposes a set of standards developed from a variety of references and personal experiences with instructional development units from across the country. Thirty-eight…

This paper defines, develops, and displays a mathematical modeling formulation for exploring decisions available to the higher educational administrator in evaluating discrete educational program budgets (instructional, service, and administrative) for possible future funding alternatives. Complex budget reduction strategies can be…

The conceptual framework, design, and implementation plan for building a decision-support system for enrollment management at a private university are outlined, including information about the computer hardware and software used in implementation. (Author/MSE)

Sixty-five hour-long, topic-centered interviews were conducted with site-level administrators at elementary schools in a large urban school district to explore the relationships between evaluation information and other inputs into decision-making. The interviews focused on specific program-related decisions and sought to recreate the…

The organizational model was designed to allow faculty members in a large academic department to participate in decisions concerning courses, curriculum, and programs. Rather than encouraging faculty to work independently on teaching and committee assignments, the model promotes the sharing of information, teamwork, and interdepartmental…

To examine the impact of program evaluation information upon decision making, case studies were conducted of five different programs: (1) a diagnostic teaching kindergarten program (K-LEAD), funded under the Elementary Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Title I; (2) Project MORE, an ESEA Title IV-C funded junior high school program dealing with school…

Ten management problems for chairs of small departments in small colleges are discussed, along with problem-solving strategies for these administrators. Serious disagreements within a small and intimate department may create a country club culture in which differences are smoothed over and the personal idiosyncrasies of individual members are…

A theoretical analysis of embedded organizations (parts of a larger organization) is developed and eight propositions relative to the use of modifying responses by such organizational units are offered. Research was conducted on the responses of two colleges within a university to their respective growing/declining resource environments over an…

The University of Northern Iowa (UNI) has developed a regional partnership program. This collaborative partnership has reshaped the university's long established field experience program. This reshaping was designed to bring the College of Education into a new and expanded relationship with the school districts, schools, and individual educators…

Faculty and student opinions about general education at Southwest Texas State University were assessed, along with the effect of the matrix administration structure. Views concerning the present requirements and structure of general education were surveyed, based on administration of faculty and student questionnaires. The survey data revealed…

The design and use of a departmental decision support system at Florida State University are described from the perspective of a department head. The decisions selected for study are ones of adequacy, equitability, quality, efficiency, and consistency. The complexity of the decision is related to the complexity of the support system. The major…

Factors related to the contextual aspects of educational administrators' information needs were studied in a statewide survey of 199 administrators of adult and community education programs. Attention was directed to: varying preferences for different information sources, the effects of different decision or program development tasks on…