This digest summarizes the highlights of an analysis of assessment practices used in education and professional development for educators. A research team from RAND conducted a broad review of the literature and reviewed the documents of organizations engaged in such assessments. Researchers interviewed experts, attended conferences, and conducted…

How academic programs might go about making evaluation more useful, thus making critical reflection more likely, is the central purpose of this book. The chapters are: (1) "The Concept of Academic Quality"; (2) "Motivation for Quality Work"; (3) "Evaluating Quality in Academic Programs"; (4) "Creating the Engaged Department"; (5) "Negotiating…

When museum professionals speak of evaluating a web site, they primarily mean formative evaluation, and by that they primarily mean testing the usability of the site. In the for-profit world, usability testing is a multi-million dollar industry, while non-profits often rely on far too few dollars to do too much. Hence, heuristic evaluation is one…

This evaluation plan, which is updated annually, provides a synthesis of the various evaluation activities of Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL). During 1999, the fourth year of the Laboratory's contract period with the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, special studies and integrated studies were designed to…

This study addressed the challenges of developing a faculty professional development workshop on assessment, measurement, and evaluation of achievement in adult learners. The setting for the workshop was a system of postsecondary career colleges throughout the United States. The curriculum development model of D. Kirkpatrick (1994) was used as a…

This volume is the third in a projected six-volume series called "Agenda for Excellence at the Mid-Level." It describes a process that school administrators can use to conceptualize, plan, execute, and utilize the results of a school assessment, allowing them to take a snapshot of their school. It outlines a set of alternative procedures to be…

As part of the evaluation of schools participating in the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) program, a site researcher is to visit each participating site twice a year to collect data for CSRD formative evaluation. To prepare site researchers for their evaluation activities, a training and orientation session was held for 18…

As part of the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) program, schools participated in the Formative Evaluation Process for School Improvement (FEPSI), a package of services mainly provided during two visits each school year. This document reports on the evaluation of training for Georgia educators involved in FEPSI as site researchers.…

Latent growth modeling (LGM) has emerged as a flexible analytic technique for modeling change over time because it can describe individual variability in terms of initial status and in growth. LGM methodology can also provide a means for testing the contribution of other variables in order to explain variability in those initial levels and growth…

This digest describes some of the basic logic-of-evaluation skills and some of the basic methodological skills that need to be mastered in order to practice the art and science of evaluation. Some topics from the logic of evaluation that must be dealt with include understanding : (1) the differences and connections between evaluation and other…

The action evaluation process at a mediation agency in Dayton, Ohio, that offers the services of trained volunteers is described. Action evaluation is an integrated research and intervention methodology for helping to define, promote, and assess success in an endeavor, while using evaluation as a bridge between research and practice in ways that…

As part of its transformation to prepare the armed forces to meet current and future challenges, the Department of Defense (DOD) is expanding its use of advanced distributed learning (ADL) techniques in senior- and intermediate-level officer professional military education (PME).To determine whether DOD uses a systematic process for evaluating the…

Presents a sample teacher survey that can be used to rank a high school program. Results from a national sample of schools are included for comparative purposes. (Author/DN)

Article presents thirty-two criteria for rating a school district public relations program. (GB)

The Illinois Evaluation System has been designed to continuously evaluate the total occupational programs of local education agencies. Consisting of three phases, the system involves local planning, State review and evaluation of local planning documents, and on-site visitation to monitor any changes in local programs. (Author/DS)