The Academic Pathways of People Learning Engineering Survey (APPLES or APPLE survey) is a component of the Academic Pathways Study (APS) of the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE). The APS aims to provide a comprehensive account of how people become engineers by exploring key questions around the engineering learning…

This experiment was conducted to test the predictions of two behavioral-economic approaches to quantifying relative reinforcer efficacy. The normalized demand analysis suggests that characteristics of averaged normalized demand curves may be used to predict progressive-ratio breakpoints and peak responding. By contrast, the demand analysis holds…

This article features FAST-R, or Formative Assessments of Student Thinking in Reading, a new assessment tool that measures critical-reading skills. FAST-R was developed by the the nonprofit Boston Plan for Excellence (BPE), a local education foundation, to provide teachers with information about what students are thinking when they try to find…

The culture at the authors' institution raised barriers to changing from traditional assessment to portfolio assessment in the doctoral program. A Culture of Independence presented barriers of time and functional inadequacy. A Culture of Compliance raised trust, group process, and membership issues. These barriers were managed and overcome using…

Students learning about professional communication are not often taught about assessment as indicated by its omission as a chapter topic in many major textbooks in the field. Nonetheless, students need to be educated on this topic because, increasingly, there is a push towards instituting assessment practices in business organizations.…

Assessment of student learning is key to all educational endeavors and required by governmental and accrediting bodies. Faculty initiate and implement assessment strategies to be sure that students are learning what is being taught. Classroom assessment is generally easier for faculty to embrace than course or program level assessment because…

We use this paper to suggest the use of Sen's capability approach in interpreting disability. The substantive focus is our evaluation of the Drake Music Project, which uses electronic and computer technologies to enable severely disabled people to explore, compose and perform music. We consider how the process of making music enables the musicians…

The author discusses validation hierarchies grounded in the tradition of quantitative research that generally consists of the criteria of validity, reliability and objectivity and compares this with similar criteria developed by the qualitative tradition, described as trustworthiness, dependability and confirmability. Although these quantitative…

Single-case design and progress monitoring methodologies are efficient and cost-effective strategies for increasing accountability for indirect service provision. Single-case design conceptualizes the treatment of an individual as an experimental process that can be monitored over time and evaluated for effectiveness. Increasingly in clinical,…

Many intervention programs use home visiting to target enhanced parent-child interactions; however, few studies have examined specific intervention strategies, limiting the potential utility of evaluation results to guide practice, research, or policy effectively. In this paper, we recommend that researchers and program evaluators open the "black…

Conclusions about levels and trends in high school dropout differ dramatically depending on whether dropout is measured using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) or from the Common Core of Data (CCD). Using CPS- and CCD-based drop-out measures for 16- to 19-year-olds--which differ solely in their estimates of the number of 16- to…

In the fall of 2003, Teaching Support Services (TSS), a department at the University of Guelph, was approached by a faculty member in the department of food sciences. Professor Art Hill was interested in seeking support in systematically assessing the department's undergraduate curriculum and using that assessment to trigger further improvement of…

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…

This article discusses the positive and negative consequences of large-scale testing on five key stakeholders of testing results: students, teachers, administrators, policymakers and parents. The factors that affect the nature of testing consequences are also discussed and means that may provide remedies for associated pitfalls are proposed.

A workplace literacy project was conducted at the Nabisco Richmond Facility for the following purposes: to determine what academic skills are necessary to perform 10 selected jobs, to develop a validated assessment to evaluate an employee's literacy skills, to develop a job-specific curriculum to improve skill deficits, and to provide an…