Interest is growing in naturalistic inquiry and qualitative methods in educational inquiry. Naturalistic inquiry refers to a paradigm of inquiry with two major features: a low degree of manipulation or control of the variables prior to the inquiry and a low degree of constraints imposed on the outcomes of the inquiry. Qualitative methods seek to…

Reviews of past research on psychosocial learning environments show that relatively few studies have involved the use of environment dimensions either as criterion variables in the evaluation computer education programs or with adult learners (in contrast to elementary and secondary school students). This study is distinctive in that it used a…

An interagency conference, Reading Families and Youth Who Have Limited Resources, was held in September 1992. Over a 2-day period, 186 adult educators and human service professionals participated in 27 different workshops. An innovative evaluation model was developed to assess the impacts of conference participation on reaching audiences who have…

This monograph reviews and synthesizes highlights from relevant writings on evaluation and suggests interpretations and applications for practitioners who plan and conduct various types of educational programs for adults. It suggests that planning and conducting effective educational programs for adults entails contributions by various…

A description and analysis of the outcomes of a three year project designed to create a long-term education staff development system throughout Region 3 is presented in the evaluation report. Region-wide evaluation, indicating considerable progress resulting from the project, was based on 63 criteria developed by project participants. State by…

Intended primarily for human resources managers who are responsible for the development of executives, this paper lays out the potential advantages and hazards of enhanced feedback. It first looks at enhanced feedback and its rationale in detail. Four sources of data are described: numerical ratings and verbatim comments; data from the workplace…

Training managers increasingly are being asked to document the cost effectiveness of their programs. A cost-benefit analysis program was implemented at the Anchor Hocking Corporation that may be useful for other organizations. The cost-benefit analysis at Anchor Hocking is part of the training system design. The complete training system design…

Course evaluation data can be a meaningful resource to improve the human resource development (HRD) practitioner's decision making. Recommended properties of an effective evaluation form are separation of the overall evaluation from the evaluation of specific aspects; a one-to-nine rating scale; strong, explicit verbal anchors on the rating scale;…

Presents general systems models (ballistic system, guided system, and adaptive system) and an evaluation matrix to help in examining training evaluation alternatives and in deciding what evaluation is appropriate. Includes some guidelines for conducting evaluation studies using four designs (control group, reversal, multiple baseline, and…

"International Programming Issues for Extension Education" (Rosson, Sanders) describes a survey of extension personnel identifying global competition and agriculture as a key issue. "Expanding Our Horizons Internationally" (Richardson, Woods) discusses North Carolina Extension's staff development on global issues. In…

Six topics relative to staff development are discussed. The first chapter discusses staff and organization development in a 1981 perspective. Both staff and organization development are necessary for planned change and school improvement. Both are important processes in personal and professional growth. The second chapter views staff development…

A 6-year study of outdoor-based management training (OMT) programs used traditional evaluation methods and new methods designed specifically for these unique programs. A survey of 1,000 training directors indicated that this type of training was very controversial. The next step was to use traditional training and organizational behavior…

A project was undertaken to develop a guide to help small business programs select good education and training programs for their staff. An initial step was a review of literature related to adult education and training in small business and training evaluation. The initial plan was to have the guidebook be specific to a given industry or other…

The English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) Teacher Institute, created in 1980, is a staff development program for preparing instructors to use ESL techniques and materials. The Institute is for beginning and inexperienced ESL teachers. An evaluation of the 1986-87 institute was undertaken to determine the institute's impact on instructors' abilities…

This digest of 310 Project evaluation methods is intended to provide examples of and guidelines for evaluating 310 projects at the national, state, and project levels. The first section, which is devoted to state-level 310 evaluation projects, includes a report on a longitudinal study assessing the impact of 310 projects in Florida, a report…