Use of evaluation findings is a valued outcome for most evaluators. However, to optimize use, the findings need to be disseminated to potential users in formats that facilitate use of the information. This reflective case narrative uses a national evaluation of a multisite National Science Foundation (NSF) program as the setting for describing the…

Educators, practitioners, and policy makers have long debated the impact of the results of evaluation studies on educational practice. If evaluation is to influence practice, the communication gap between researchers and decision makers must be reduced or eliminated. In order to close this gap, evaluators must become educators, working with a…

Describes a structured set of procedures for critical script appraisal of nontheatrical scripts by carefully selected evaluators. An overview of the procedure, script reviewer qualities, the questionnaire's structure and objectives, and discussion of a sequence-by-sequence evaluation, script annotations, reviewer comments, and report preparation…

This paper describes a study which examined the similarities and differences in the reactions to a naturalistic account between an internal participant audience and an audience external to the evaluation context so that some notions about generalizability of such material could be developed. A second aim of the study was to examine the…

Evaluation is an act of persuasion directed to a specific audience concerning the solution of a problem. The process of evaluation is prescribed by the nature of knowledge--which is generally complex, always uncertain (in varying degrees), and not always propositional--and by the nature of logic, which is always selective. In the process of…