This evaluation, which focuses on the capacity-building mission of the Comprehensive Centers, was designed to add to the findings of the previous national evaluation of the Comprehensive Centers Program. That evaluation, completed in 2011, used survey data, structured interviews, and rating scales to analyze the extent to which State Education…

Participatory evaluation tools have been shown to be effective for program development in various settings, including in higher education. Taking student perspectives into consideration is key for graduate program development, particularly in interdisciplinary programs. The current study utilizes Group Level Assessment (GLA), a participatory…

Leaders of higher education need practical solutions to engaging in program improvement, providing student supports, and fortifying partnerships with collaborators. Compounding these needs are the heightened demands thrust upon faculty to advise students online, reconfigure in-person courses to hybrid and online models, and attend to their…

In contemporary American society, evidence of bias within educational institutions abounds (Douglas & Halas, 2013; Hardie & Tyson, 2013; Martin, 2009; Milner, 2013; Ropers-Huilman, Winters, & Enke, 2013; Rothstein, 2013; Wildhagen, 2012). Educational institutions and their leaders articulate a commitment to fostering an inclusive,…

Funded grant projects all involve some form of evaluation, and Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grants are no exception. Program evaluation serves as a critical component not only for evaluating if a project has met its intended and desired outcomes, but the evaluation process is also a central feature of the grant application itself.…

In this results-oriented era of accountability, educator preparation programs are called upon to provide comprehensive data related to student and program outcomes while also providing evidence of continuous improvement. Collaborative Analysis of Student Learning (CASL) is one approach for fostering critical inquiry about student learning.…

The Department of Education (Education) provided more than $125 billion in federal student aid funds in fiscal year 2016 to help students pay for higher education. To participate in federal student aid programs, postsecondary schools must be accredited by an accrediting agency recognized by Education. This report examines: (1) the strengths and…

Systemic efforts to strengthen teacher preparation in Louisiana led to the first statewide value-added assessment (VAA) of teacher preparation programs (TPPs). Subsequently, a number of states have adopted VAA of TPPs. The authors describe challenges that were confronted around the deployment of Louisiana's VAA of TPPs. The discussion is organized…

Despite much progress in improving the quality of preschool programs, there is still an uneven quality of instruction in early childhood settings. Providing support and professional development (PD) for teachers that is practical, systematic and sustainable is one potential avenue to increase classroom quality in preschool, including quality of…

The articles in this special issue discuss efforts to improve academic reading outcomes for students and ways to achieve high implementation fidelity of promising strategies. At times the authors discuss if--and how--strong fidelity is associated with strong outcomes and potentially even impacts (the difference between program and control group…

The U.S. Department of Education (Department) Office of Inspector General (OIG) Strategic Plan for fiscal years 2018 through 2022 describes the focus and direction of OIG's operations over the next five years, establishes their organizational goals, and outlines the strategies they will employ to reach those goals and the measures they will use to…

In the introduction of this article, I presented theoretical aspects concerning evaluation methods of students' perception. In the second part, I presented my research results on students' perception about the new educational master programme "Evaluation of Resources and Sustainable Territorial Development" (ERSTD). The main purpose of…

An evaluation system that is designed to support and improve teacher practice--rather than simply to assess and manage teacher performance--would have as its foundation effective and reliable processes to observe classroom practice and give teachers useful feedback. Such an improvement-focused evaluation system should be aligned with and…

This article investigates the participating students' evaluation of a teacher training seminar about heterogeneity in the classroom at Bielefeld University, Germany. The evaluation made use of a short questionnaire and an end-of-term test of the students' knowledge on the subject matter. The questionnaire is tested for objectivity, reliability,…

Purpose: Although the number of higher education institutions adopting sustainability-focused faculty learning communities (FLCs) has grown, very few of these programs have published evaluation research. This paper aims to report findings from an evaluation of the University of Vermont's (UVM's) sustainability faculty fellows (SFF) program. It…