Across OECD countries, the increasing demand for evidence-based policy making has further led governments to design policies jointly with clear measurable objectives, and to define relevant indicators to monitor their achievement. This paper discusses the importance of such indicators in supporting the implementation of education policies.…

Educational policy borrowing has become rather common in our globalised world. However, the literature lacks contextual criteria that may be employed by researchers and policy makers to assess the correspondence of a particular policy to the local context of a borrowing system. Based on a secondary analysis of documents and research reports, this…

Continuing Professional Development (CPD), in the area of teacher education, refers to the procedures, programs or strategies that help teachers encounter the challenges of their work and accomplish their own and their learning center's goals. To this aim, the purpose of this study is to propose and validate an appropriate model of EFL teachers'…

With the widespread use of the Internet, adopting e-learning systems in courses has gradually become more and more important in universities in Taiwan. However, because of limitations of teachers' time, selecting suitable online IT tools has become very important. This study proposes an analytic hierarchy process (AHP)-multi-choice goal…

With quality assurance related to the Bologna goals, universities are required to fulfil internationally accepted standardized criteria of quality. This tends to reinforce control in assessment. However, control-oriented evaluations seem to lack meaning for academic staff. The article explored the possibilities and space for improvement-oriented…

This report explores the extent to which states (and several large cities) are positioned to provide high quality preschool education on a large scale. States and cities that are already doing so or that could do so with modest improvements offer opportunities for advocacy to advance access to high quality early education as well as for rigorous…

The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) submits these comments in response to the US Department of Education's (ED) draft requirements, priorities, selection criteria, and definitions for the Race to the Top District (RTT-D) competition. DQC applauds ED for including the following components of the proposal: (1) Data is acknowledged throughout the…

District Awards for Teacher Excellence (D.A.T.E.) is a state-funded program in Texas that provides grants to districts for the implementation of locally-designed performance pay plans. All districts in the state are eligible to receive grants, but participation is voluntary. As D.A.T.E. continues in its second year of operation with approximately…

This document is a report on the implementation of changes to methods formerly used by the Social Security Administration (SSA) to evaluate claims relating to mental impairment for disability benefits. The introductory letter states several conclusions reached by the General Accounting Office's (GAO) review of the criteria used by the SSA to…

The development of theories to explain decision-making requires a model that identifies the factors relevant to decision-making. Seven sets of explanatory factors--called the "seven analytical A's"--should be analyzed. They include (1) axiological factors, or those related to values; (2) ten axiomatic factors comprising socioeconomic,…

Analysis of the assumptions underlying the stakeholder approach to evaluation combined with the limited experience in testing the approach reported in this volume, suggests that some claims are cogent and others problematical. (Author)

Discussion of the new Web-based instructional planning and management systems (also known as killer apps) that integrate all phases of the educational process focuses on three aspects: how to decide which system meets your needs; criteria to use in evaluating and comparing systems; and how to plan successful implementation. (LRW)

A conceptual framework for planned educational change is presented in this book. The three studies outlined in part I examine how curriculum decisions are made by teachers and factors that seem to influence this decision making. An attempt is also made to discover explanations for the character of this decision making, through the use of several…

The four papers presented in this book are intended to promote awareness of educational applications of microcomputer systems, educational software, telecommunications networks, and cable television. An introduction and a list of contributors precede the papers, which discuss specific topics related to computers and new technologies in education:…

The first paper in this collection of symposium papers presents the results of a survey of nearly 800 educational institutions and provides information on institutional characteristics, institutions engaged in teacher education evaluation, scope of data collected, methods of data collection, relationship between size of program and method of data…