In relation to teaching and learning approaches that improve student learning outcomes, threshold concepts have generated substantial interest in higher education. They have been described as "portals" that lead to a transformed way of understanding or thinking, enabling learners to progress, and have been enthusiastically adopted to…

Starting from the premise that administrators, program personnel, and social scientists are equally responsible for the conduct of evaluation, this paper addresses the legitimate role of evaluation research via discussion of: (1) the environment in which evaluation takes place; (2) types of evaluation designs; and (3) selection of an evaluation…

A series of six papers, this synthesis of literature on rural development and evaluation offers a starting point for rural development planning and projects from the national to the local level. The current state of knowledge is assessed and application techniques and methods are pinpointed. In the introduction, operation of the Functional Network…