This report conducted an evaluation of the initial implementation of Reading Roots 5 and determined the program's impacts on students' reading outcomes. The study employed a one-group, pre-post correlational study design. Overall, participating students' reading achievement and fluency increased over the period when RR5 was implemented. This pilot…

Purpose: Universidad San Francisco de Quito, USFQ, completed an assessment study to understand its performance in sustainability in 2012. This study aims to recognize the limitations of applying a North American rating system considering relevant criteria to a South American university and to emphasize the importance and lack of benchmarks…

In recent years, access to higher education was greatly improved through public funding. This improvement is not matched by a similar increase in graduation rate. The purpose of this study is to examine what postsecondary institutions can do to improve college freshman retention. The conceptual framework was based on research on college student…

This report presents a snapshot of the academic performance of children on guardianship/custody orders from 2003 to 2006, and changes in their performance over this period. This concludes a two-stage pilot study, the first of its kind in Australia. A considerable proportion of children on guardianship/custody orders are not meeting the national…

This technical brief examines whether, after two years of implementation, schools in Massachusetts using quarterly benchmark exams aligned with state standards in middle school mathematics showed greater gains in student achievement than those not doing so. A quasi-experimental design, using covariate matching and comparative interrupted…

This report examines a Massachusetts pilot program for quarterly benchmark exams in middle-school mathematics, finding that program schools do not show greater gains in student achievement after a year. But that finding might reflect limited data rather than ineffective benchmark assessments. Benchmark assessments are used in many districts…

This is Volume II of the report on the evaluation of the NSLP Application Verification Pilot Projects. It supplements Volume I, which presents the evaluation findings. Volume II has two objectives: (1) to provide a detailed description of the methods used to conduct the study; and (2) to present tabulations that supplement and extend the analyses…

Nine Canadian health libraries participated in a pilot test of the Benchmarking Tool Kit between January and April, 1998. Although the Tool Kit was designed specifically for health libraries, the content and approach are useful to other types of libraries as well. Used to its full potential, benchmarking can provide a common measuring stick to…

This study, part of a larger effort to develop a methodology for evaluating intelligent computer systems (Artificial Intelligence Systems), explores the use of benchmarking as an evaluation technique. Benchmarking means comparing the performance of intelligent computer systems with human performance on the same task. Benchmarking in evaluation has…