Questionnaires covering evaluation strategies and practices were sent to directors of 200 camps accredited by the American Camping Association. Half received questionnaires designed to collect quantitative data in the form of yes/no responses and Likert scales; the other half received qualitative questionnaires covering the same information in an…

This paper examines the concepts of program monitoring and program evaluation in the literature, and offers working definitions based on two dimensions of measurement: focus (what questions are addressed) and timing (how often the measures are taken). Focus can be on inputs to the program or outcomes from it; timing can be one-shot or continuous.…

Described is a procedure (Audit Dress Rehearsal) used in a special education program audit consultation service which included a practice audit designed to lower anxiety and raise awareness of concern for program success. The introduction includes sections dealing with evaluation and audit personnel, planning and implementing an audit, and stages…

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…

This paper outlines purposes of program evaluation and provides practical information to help individuals from a wide spectrum of backgrounds use evaluation to move their program ahead in a purposeful manner. Wisely moving ahead requires an assessment of an organization's past and present as well as an examination of its assumptions about the…

The Special Projects (Innovations) Program of the Australian Schools Commission receives less funding than other programs of the commission but has been received more enthusiastically, perhaps because it encourages and supports local initiatives. Given the small scale and local derivation of the projects funded under the program, evaluation…

This series of papers on needs assessment and program evaluation for school library media supervisors defines these concepts and explores ways in which they can be applied to the school media program. Papers included are: "A Humanistic Approach to Needs Assessment and Program Evaluation," by Tom Sills; "Approaches to Needs Assessment and Program…

The two-part paper describes the PASS (Program Analysis of Service Service Systems) evaluation method and its use in assessing a local school district federally funded project for mainstreaming elementary-level handicapped children. It is explained that PASS is an approach based on normalization and accountability principles applicable to a…

Problems are frequently encountered when attempting to improve the evaluation design of an ongoing educational program which has not made adequate provisions for evaluation. Usually the objectives of such a program are too global to guide the evaluator in the development of a more functional evaluation design. This paper presents a discussion of…

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 describes a project in which an office of institutional research in a private research university developed a "Key Success Indices" (KSI) report that is presented each month to the president and other senior officers of the university. The KSI report collects summary data from a wide range of offices within the institution to…

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 areas of educational programs, their design and operation, their intellectual base, and their philosophic presumptions are examined. Part One discusses the nature of academic programs in colleges and universities: influences, purposes, and priorities; and the concept of curriculum and its origins, definition, and design. It is proposed that…

A framework is presented that relates concepts of audit reliability to the uses of information gathered from a discrepancy program audit of Elementary and Secondary Education Act Title IV-C programs in Florida. Three issues are addressed: (1) the meaning of reliability in relation to the audit process; (2) the importance of reliability of auditor…

Intended for writing instructors and content instructors who require writing in their courses, this document describes a college's writing skills assessment program and reviews the implications of a campus-wide approach to evaluating writing. The paper emphasizes that the scoring of placement and developmental English exit exams is done by the…