This report from the Career and Technical Education (CTE) Research Network Lead team provides final results from an evaluability assessment of CTE programs that feasibly could be evaluated using a rigorous experimental design. Evaluability assessments (also called feasibility studies) are used in education and other fields, such as international…

This report provides an overview of methods of evaluating the impact of family planning programs in developing countries, with a discussion of their strengths and weaknesses. The focus is on estimation of program impact on fertility rates, though other potential outcome measures, such as maternal and child health, are also discussed. The first…

This paper focuses on the discrepancy the authors personally experienced between the stated principles of social research and experience with several applied social research projects over the last 10 years. Three cases of applied social research are presented and critiqued, and two types of structural problems were found. (Author/LMO)

Although converging evidence favors fostering phonemic segmentation and phonic decoding knowledge in the primary grades, there is little agreement on best ways to accomplish these goals. The well-documented importance of teacher expertise is often ignored. Administrators evaluating reading programs should exercise considerable skepticism and…

The financial aspects of educational programs are discussed in this commentary on the evaluation of the Emergency School Aid Act. Budget and expenditure data must be examined closely when evaluating educational programs. (JKS)

The growing demand for program evaluation in the 1970s gave rise to a need for a comprehensive, carefully developed, objective set of guiding principles for the evaluation process, from initial planning to final report. The Joint Committee on Standards for Education Evaluation was established to meet this need. This broad-based group, representing…

As the number and scope of school-based clinics grow, interest in their evaluation increases. Evaluation of a comprehensive school-based clinic program in New York City revealed methodological issues in evaluation of these programs. The first issue involves program goals and objectives. Even before program implementation, the evaluator should…

Planned Variation was deisgned as a three-year program to assess the implementation of prominent preschool curricula in Head Start and the immediate effects of the programs. Sites used were those in which the sponsor already had a Follow Through program; the research project lacked the necessary control over site characteristics. Consultants…

This review of the research on the evaluation of career education provides a review and synthesis of five major publications prepared for and/or published for the United States Office of Education and considers a number of problems and promises facing evaluators of career education in the eighties. Reviewed are reports prepared by Tuckman and…

This monograph summarizes the results of two mini-conference discussions on the general topic, evaluation of career education. It addresses three major points: (1) Problems involved in evaluation of career education, i.e., instrumentation, expectation, concept implementation, and perceived personal benefit, (2) examples of evaluation approaches…

When participants with varied background and interests join in a collaborative activity, their different viewpoints may make the evaluation of the activity more difficult. Experience evaluating a multidisciplinary biomedical research center illustrates the influence of values on program evaluation. (Author/GDC)

Interpretations point up the fact that research-oriented evaluation, aiming at estimation of program effects on specific test outcome measures, is capable of illuminating only part of the value of a complex social program like Follow Through. (Author/MLF)

Albuquerque's Title I evaluation staff is in the process of generating a comprehensive local evaluation design because it considers the federally required product evaluation unsatisfactory. The required mean-gain comparisons were extended beyond the dimension of program to the dimensions of school, grade, and Title I instructor. This evaluation…

Many problems are encountered when evaluating a complex, decentralized national program such as 4-H. Good effects of the federal evaluation mandate include local concern with program quality. Bad effects include that local agencies are forced to utilize noxious methodologies or to collect information they consider to be unimportant. (Author/GC)