This guide presents scoring criteria, the writing prompt, and sample student papers for the grade 8 end of grade persuasive/argumentative composition statewide writing achievement test. The introductory section presents background information on statewide writing tests in North Carolina, scoring writing samples, and the scoring process. The next…

This report provides a framework for local adult literacy program evaluation. Section 1 lists questions to achieve a consensus regarding the scope and nature of the desired evaluation; lists the five basic steps to design an evaluation of the program; and provides an evaluation report outline. Section 2 describes the following questionnaires that…

The leadership role of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) in developing a System of Expert Panels to identify and share promising and exemplary products, programs. and practices is discussed. The System of Expert Panels should enable the Federal government to help the public learn about replicable research and development…

This manual is intended to help workplace education practitioners understand the program evaluation process. The manual begins with a discussion of the issues involved in choosing an approach to evaluating workplace education programs. Six assumptions about objectives, development, management, and evaluation of workplace education programs are…

Christopher Newport College, begun as a colony of the College of William and Mary, was born in the 1960s out of the fervor to open the doors of higher education to more people. It enrolls between 500-600 students in freshman writing courses each semester. Changes to the freshman composition program were undertaken, beginning in 1994, with a shift…

"Adapting Instructional Techniques" was developed at Indiana University to improve the performance of teachers in classrooms equipped for interactive audio or video in a distance education setting. The formative evaluation of this videotape is described. The tape suggested modifications for five common instructional techniques used in…

This paper is a case study about the role of evaluation and its effect on a foster care program's adoption services. It presents examples of the dilemmas often faced by the evaluator who must identify problems and design action plans to correct program deficiencies. HeartShare Human Services of New York is an 80-year-old nonprofit agency that…

An expanded vision of evaluation is offered that accommodates the use of both descriptive information and evaluative information, and which connects evaluation in the naturalistic paradigm with evaluation in the rationalistic paradigm for making informed decisions within programs of education and development. The model of "Information Development…

As of June 1995, the federal government had granted to 28 states waivers from current federal laws and regulations, allowing states to test a wide range of welfare reform approaches. This study, conducted by the National Center for Children in Poverty, examined the evaluation plans of 21 waiver experiments in 17 states, focusing on the impact of…

This manual is intended for managers of training and institutional development programs. Its objective is to provide clear and practical advice for those who conduct impact evaluations. Impact evaluation is distinguished from other types of evaluation by the area of the program on which it focuses, the assessment of the extent to which a program…

This resource guide, the first of three volumes, lays out the fundamentals of outcome measurements for assistive technology. It includes the whys and hows of gathering data so that assistive technology practitioners can integrate outcomes measurement activities in their daily practice. Chapters include: (1) "Concepts and Rationale for…

A survey method was developed and used to determine interest in new course topics at the Learning Institute for Elders (LIFE) at the University of Central Florida. In the absence of a known validated method for course concept testing, this approach was modeled after the "message pretesting," or formative, research used and validated in…

This document considers both self-examination and external evaluation of gifted and talented education programs. Principles of the self-examination process are offered, noting similarities to external evaluation models. Principles of self-evaluation efforts include the importance of maintaining a nonjudgmental orientation, soliciting views from…

This handbook was developed to provide principal investigators and project evaluators with a basic understanding of selected approaches to evaluation. It is aimed at people who need to learn more about both what evaluation can do and how to do an evaluation, rather than those who already have a solid base of experience in the field. It builds on…

This paper presents the evaluation results of the "Exploring with Technology" grant funded during the 1992-1993 school year by the Florida Department of Education. The grant proposed to integrate a variety of technological applications with the social studies curriculum. The main purpose of the paper is to discuss the process evaluation…