Peer assessment is understood to be an arrangement with students assessing the quality of their fellow students' writings and giving feedback to each other. This multiple-case study of seven designs of peer assessment focuses on the contribution of peer assessment to the acquisition of undergraduates' writing skills. Its aim is to arrive at an…

This paper outlines the preponderant approaches to external quality evaluation, including the purpose, focus, object, rationale, and methods of external evaluations. Accountability, compliance and, in some countries, control are much more frequent rationales for external monitoring than improvement. Research on the impact of quality monitoring is…

Over the last few years there has been increasing interest in process-based approaches in higher education administration, including "business process modelling" for development of information systems, "process redesign" to remove duplication and bottlenecks, and "process management" to improve operational…

This tutorial addresses the complex pathophysiology; various structural and neurologic causes; methods of clinical appraisal; and alternative behavioral, prosthetic, and medicosurgical treatments of velopharyngeal dysfunction. To balance the primary focus of this review on hypernasal resonance and articulation disorders, discussions concerning…

Entry into professions, such as medicine, law, and the clergy, is typically controlled. In contrast, evaluation has multiple pathways leading into the field. For evaluators, a graduate degree from a university program is one of several ways to become an evaluator. What university programs exist to prepare evaluators and what is their nature? In…

This article guides the reader through the actual, step-by-step process of preparing the web-based NASPE/NCATE program report. The following five sections are discussed in detail: (1) contextual information; (2) assessments and related data; (3) standards assessment chart; (4) evidence for meeting standards; and (5) use of assessment results to…

The authors describe the process used to revise a traditional doctoral student evaluation system from one that consisted of written comprehensive and final oral examinations to one that features portfolio development. Student competence, expected student outcomes in each competency area, procedures for portfolio development, and documents and…

Not all policy questions can be addressed by social experiments. Nonexperimental evaluation methods provide an alternative to experimental designs but their results depend on untestable assumptions. This paper presents evidence on the reliability of propensity score matching (PSM), which estimates treatment effects under the assumption of…

This study investigates how program evaluation has contributed to the definition of quality in early childhood programs and what social and cultural conditions have influenced these definitions. First, a review of evaluation reports from the last 3 decades identified three types of quality used to evaluate early childhood programs: (a)…

A life cycle metaphor characterizes the evolving relationship between the evaluator and program staff. This framework suggests that common developmental dynamics occur in roughly the same order across groups and settings. There are stage-specific dynamics that begin with Pre-History, which characterize the relationship between the grantees and…

In educational contexts, understanding the student's learning must take account of the student's construction of reality. Reality as experienced by the student has an important additional value. This assumption also applies to a student's perception of evaluation and assessment. Students' study behaviour is not only determined by the examination…

Despite the critical importance of maintaining a valid and transparent selection process that serves the values held by all stakeholders involved in medical education (i.e., students, faculty, society), there continue to be problems with the current state of available admissions protocols. Some problems derive from inertia induced by inaccurate…

Peer-to-peer assessment, take-home exams and a mathematical modeling survey were used to monitor and assess students' attitudes, skills and competencies in mathematical modeling. The students were all in a secondary mathematics, teacher education program with a comprehensive amount of mathematics studies behind them. Findings indicate that…

In recent years there has been growing concern to improve standards in postgraduate research. Much of this has focused on generic research skills training. However, there are other, equally important, supervisory aspects such as welfare, mentoring and support arrangements. This article focuses on the initial expectations, of both students and…

This article describes the Self-Assessment of Program Evaluation Expertise instrument and procedure developed to help participants assess their learning gains in a 3-week evaluation institute. Participants completed the instrument in a pre- and posttest format. To reduce both the threat of embarrassment from individual results and the temptation…