The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evaluates research studies that look at the effectiveness of education programs, products, practices, and policies, which the WWC calls "interventions." Many studies of education interventions make claims about impacts on students' outcomes. Some studies have designs that enable readers to make causal…

Universities in Europe have been playing an increasingly important role in the institutional evaluation of political and social systems for the last thirty years. Their major contribution to those processes of accountability has been to add methods and safeguards of evaluative research. In this paper we report an illustration of how evaluative…

Designing and implementing assessment instruments are ongoing challenges for physical educators. The initial design phase includes asking the question, "What do I want the students to know and/or be able to do?" Seemingly, the question is direct and should lead to a concrete answer. In addition to designing assessment instruments, one of the most…

The "PISA 2009 Technical Report" describes the methodology underlying the PISA 2009 survey. It examines additional features related to the implementation of the project at a level of detail that allows researchers to understand and replicate its analyses. The reader will find a wealth of information on the test and sample design,…

In "Holding Accountability to Account: How Scholarship and Experience in Other Fields Inform Exploration of Performance Incentives in Education"--a paper presented at the National Center on Performance Incentives research to policy conference in February--Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, argues educational…

Assisting disseminators to evaluate their efforts at improving education through effective practices and products is the aim of this guide. Offering suggested approaches within a framework, it attempts to work with objectives already defined, rather than helping with writing objectives. Given in five parts: (1) introduction and overview; (2)…

Author delineates the elements of an instructional program which is implementable and subject to evaluation. (Author/HB)

Using legislative history in an evaluation is seen as an audit activity seeking to hold the program(s) to the intent of the legislators. Five major sources for legislative history, seven acceptable sources of information, and a five-step guide for developing a legislative history are presented. (Author/PN)

Discusses a collaborative approach to evaluating professional training methods. Describes 4 objectives and 10 steps for "evaluating evaluation" that include identifying the training and evaluation goal, forming an evaluation team, designing the evaluation, developing the methods, collecting data, interpreting findings, and reporting results. (AEF)

Using architectural design as a model, the article discusses the process of evaluation design. Like the architect, the evaluator faces a problem of finding forms that best fit a partially defined set of contextual demands. The context is the set of all factors which made demands upon the final design form. Like the architect, the evaluator's…

Congress authorized Follow Through in 1967 under the Economic Opportunity Act to provide developmental and educational services for poor children in primary grades who had experienced Head Start or equivalent pre-school. A large scale service program was envisioned originally. Appropriations were not sufficient, however, so Follow Through was…

Staff development programs and evaluation designs can be improved by applying four principles: (1) Range of evaluation criteria should match range of outcomes; (2) Program outcomes should be concrete and specific to assist in formulation of evaluation criteria; (3) Evaluation design rigor should reflect the program's power; and (4) Evaluation…

A study of five state colleges and universities investigated the design and impact of administrator evaluation programs. Effects on individual administrators' performance and on organizational performance, as well as positive and negative program characteristics, are examined. (MSE)

The concept of accountability in education has two primary concerns: the responsibility to provide effective educational programs and the responsibility to employ efficiently the resources allocated for this purpose. These concerns are fundamental to an evaluation procedure based on the principle of accountability. The establishment in 1967 of new…