Program directors and evaluators need to address the important program accountability question of attribution of outcomes. This discussion is a beginning. Starting with some basics, such as the meaning of the program, approaches to program theory development, and the nature of attribution, the paper suggests three types of attribution. An…

Robert Burns wrote: "The best laid schemes of Mice and Men oft go awry". This could be considered the motto of most educational innovation. The question that arises is not so much why some innovations fail (although this is very important question), but rather why other innovations succeed? This study investigated the success factors of…

Needs assessment is an activity undertaken for planning purposes. It is important to define the limits of the study and design it on a scale appropriate to the entire planning process. This paper suggests that a needs assessment be structured into two phases. In the pre-assessment phase, a conceptual framework and well-defined exploratory…

Market analysis can provide a mechanism for making needs assessment functional and for focusing program development on constituencies in the community that need to be served. The main goals of market analysis are to generate usable information, document needs, assign priorities, locate resources, and respond to identified needs in a systematic…

A market segmentation analysis was conducted on students at a large midwestern urban university using two forms of hierarchical cluster analysis on student characteristics: an agglomerative procedure using a matching-type association measure and a divisive chi-square based automatic interaction detection (CHAID) procedure. Data were extracted from…

This paper describes experiences with in-house evaluation, using four case examples from Child and Family Services (a social service, child welfare, and mental health agency) in a meta-evaluation model to illustrate benefits and sensitivities of the internal evaluator's role. Projects reviewed were: (1) a child sexual abuse treatment team; (2) a…

Widespread provision of non-entertainment services by way of telecommunications can have a significant impact on rural growth and public services and on rural-urban migration patterns if the mix of these services and the places where they are to be introduced are chosen within the context of a national rural policy, and if local residents perceive…

How an elementary school (pseudonym, Sunny Days Elementary School) initiated school restructuring using the School Restructuring Process Model developed by Charles Reigeluth was studied, using formative evaluation to see how the actual experiences of the school might refine and improve the model. The model follows a three-phase process from…

On the premise that the variety of problems plaguing education can be clustered around central themes conducive to attack in a systematic way by educational research and development (R & D) personnel, this paper deals with the scope of management problems, requirements of an R & D management model, and a proposed R & D management system, which…

In 1983, the National Institute of Education funded the Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development to conduct a study, Applying Research to Teacher Education (ARTE) Research Utilization in Elementary Teacher Education (RUETE). The ARTE:RUETE study's purpose is to develop preservice instruction incorporating current research…

The Northern Arizona University Career Ladder Research and Evaluation Project for teachers implements a procedure for rewarding teachers based on performance levels rather than on years of teaching experience and college credits. Research data is collected each spring, analyzed and fed back to the districts for improvement of key program…

An overview of cost analysis is provided as it relates to a particular educational reform--the use of performance or authentic assessment on a large scale as a means of transforming entire educational systems. The focus of the inquiry is the New Standards Project (NSP), a joint effort of the National Center on Education and the Economy and the…

This paper provides: (1) a statement regarding the political context for energy conservation education programs; (2) a brief description of the types of program efforts reflected in the literature; (3) an overview of the purposes and approaches to energy conservation education program evaluation reflected in available literature; and (4) a…

"PBS Mathline Middle School Math Project" is a national program offered by the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) to local affiliates to increase middle school teachers' understanding of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards, encourage discourse among teachers, and develop classroom applications based on video models of…

An approach to educational research that is receiving renewed attention is participatory action research (PAR), which emphasizes a bottom-up approach to research as well as useful outcomes. PAR is a philosophy, and not a methodology per se. It is a deliberate, goal-directed, structured, and applied means of obtaining information that looks to…