The article lists questions parents can use to evaluate the quality of educational services for children with learning disabilities. Questions are grouped into the following categories: services, agency and staff, residential or special schools, camps. (DB)

Definitions of and approaches to naturalistic evaluation are discussed. The qualitative aspects of the discipline are reviewed; and use of naturalistic evaluation in descriptions, illustrations, explications, hypothesis testing, and assessment of public spending are defined. A new paradigm for naturalistic evaluation is proposed. (TJH)

An evaluation model was developed for an intervention project with mentally handicapped children and their parents involving speech therapists, a speech pathologist, and a psychologist. The model emphasizes transactional and formative approaches to qualitative evaluation, with the goal of increasing understanding of the processes underlying change…

This study estimated the cost effectiveness of a teacher career ladder reform program. An innovative multiple data source teacher evaluation system was used. Teacher time and dollar costs ranged considerably for different data sources and individual teachers; the annual dollar cost of providing eight data sources was $44.70 per teacher. (JD)

Review of published studies involving the effects of the Adaptive Learning Environment Model on special education students indicate insufficient detail for adequate evaluation of the program's impact on exceptional children. Methodological weaknesses include multiple reporting of the same data, the lack of control subjects, and inconsistencies in…

Notes that in the prevalent clinical training model, experienced clinicians provide direct supervision for trainees. Reviews literature to examine what and how evaluations of training could be conducted. Offers guidelines for developing an evaluation package to provide ongoing performance evaluation of internship training and data collection to…

Suggests ways in which states that are administering a Title IV-E independent-living program may generate program and evaluation data to meet requirements of a federal program report. Presents two examples of current evaluations of independent-living programs. (RJC)

Three business evaluation practitioners, representing the continuum from internal to external evaluation, respond to questions posed by three evaluation professors. The questions concern: the evaluator's role; evaluation methods; objectivity; and ensuring the evaluation's quality. The greatest difference between internal and external evaluators…

Randomly selected recommendations (N=176)--concerning performance evaluations of programs of public organizations--made by the General Accounting Office (GAO) in fiscal year 1983 were analyzed. Reasons for the exceptionally high acceptance rate (between 51 percent and 77 percent ) are discussed, including the GAO's status as a formal legally…

Chelimsky's five-part continuum--a model for the practice of evaluation in a political context--is reviewed. The model's conceptual framework and a question for education are discussed. By focusing on interactions between evaluators and policy actors, this model should prompt debates about unsettled issues in education policy making. (SLD)

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)

This article is an interim report on alternative assessment measures for Colorado's Information Literacy Guidelines. A history of the guidelines, information needs, information-seeking strategies, acquiring and analyzing information, the development of alternative assessment tools, and implementation and analysis processes are discussed.…

A New Zealand educator attributes end-of-school year feelings of guilt about things left undone, or things that should not have been done, to not practicing evaluation as part of planning. Suggests developing a framework that ensures certain beliefs and practices consistent with the curriculum requirements. Provides an example of such a framework.…

Develops and evaluates the linkage of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery to the mathematics scale of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The accuracy of the proficiency distribution estimated from the projection was close to the accuracy of the distribution estimated from the large scale assessment. (SLD)

Some of the threats to internal validity that arise when evaluating the impact of water conservation programs during a drought are illustrated. These include differential response to the drought, self-selection bias, and measurement error. How to deal with these problems when high-quality disaggregate data are available is discussed. (SLD)