Purpose: The past decade has seen considerable debate about how to best evaluate the efficacy of educational improvement initiatives, and members of the educational leadership research community have entered the debate with great energy. Throughout this debate, the use of randomized experiments has been a particularly contentious subject. This…

An educational intervention's effectiveness is judged by whether it produces positive outcomes for students, with the randomized controlled trial (CRT) as a valuable tool for determining intervention effects. However, the intervention-as-implemented in an experiment frequently differs from the intervention-as-designed, making it unclear whether…

Author feels that the success of an educational innovation should not be judged on whether it fulfills its promise 100 percent, but on whether it moves education closer to its goal. (Editor)

Studies are divided into two groups--results of experimental programs and effects of traditional schools. The research supports the effectiveness of nontraditional school programs. (Author/IRT)

Several problems that an evaluator of an experimental college has to face and resolve are considered. These include: (1) the purpose of the evaluation and the role of the evaluator, (2) the utility of a research design model, (3) the specificity of program goals before the evaluation is planned, and (4) the appropriateness of standardized or local…

DATA ON THE LASTING EFFECTIVENESS OF COMPENSATORY EDUCATION PROGRAMS ARE AMBIGUOUS. EVALUATIONS HAVE BEEN HAMPERED BY A LACK OF LONGITUDINAL STUDIES AND CONTROLLED EXPERIMENTS AND BY THE IMPRECISION OF THE STANDARD MEASURES. EFFECTIVE PROGRAMS, THOSE WHICH PRODUCE INCREASES IN LEARNING, SHOULD FEATURE (1) CURRICULUM ADAPTATION TO THE INDIVIDUAL…

This report is a series on the Program of Special Directed Studies for Transition to College (PSDS), which is a five-year experimental education project aimed at providing a full four-year high-quality college education for disadvantaged youths who would probably not otherwise have been eligible for admission to most four-year colleges. A research…

Strategies and systems for evaluating educational programs are detailed in an attempt to fulfill the need for a centralized evaluation capability. Since a fundamental prerequisite for program evaluation is a statement of the objectives of the educational system, a set of system goals is proposed. These goals would provide a framework of criteria…