In this article, Michael Quinn Patton pays tribute to Carol Hirschon Weiss, a woman who brought passion to evaluation use. She also brought attention to it, publishing the first article on evaluation in 1967. Weiss' many contributions have come into evaluation currency and overtaken formerly taken-for-granted assumptions. Indeed, her insights…

It is one thing to produce an innovative, construct-based assessment task; it's another to produce 10 a year that are comparable in difficulty, measure the same competencies, are free of differential item functioning, and can be scaled and equated. These challenges contributed to the failure of the performance (or authentic) assessment movement of…

In the original paper, it was argued that while there is an array of methods and methodologies available, their use is delimited by the culture of accountability that prevails in public sector institutions, a fact that is particularly problematic given the complexity and diversity of evaluation contexts today. This short rejoinder, to responses…

Recent educational accountability efforts have married student assessments with reform mandates and sanctions. As a result, students--beginning in early elementary grades--are feeling the pressures of this new era of high-stakes accountability. This article chronicles a story of the consequences of high-stakes testing on a father and his son.…

The authors present a case study examining the potential for policies to be "evidence-based." To what extent is it possible to say that a decision to implement a complex social intervention is warranted on the basis of available empirical data? The case chosen is whether there is sufficient evidence to justify banning smoking in cars carrying…

Cynthia Coburn and Erica Turner have made an important contribution by developing a framework to synthesize the various strands of research and theory related to data use in schools. The framework illustrates the complexity of the pathways between the adoption of a data-use intervention and the attainment of desired outcomes, and it clarifies the…

Coburn and Turner (this issue) present an intriguing framework for understanding how data has come to be used in the current high accountability environments in education. In this framework, they connect various processes of data use within organizational and political contexts. Data use is presented using an ecological perspective that deepens…

The focus article by Coburn and Turner (this issue) seeks to provide a comprehensive framework for understanding data use in the context of data-use interventions. This commentary focuses on what the authors see as a glaring omission in what is otherwise a valuable framework: the issue of "useful data." It is their contention that the usefulness…

The author enjoyed reading Katharine Hay's ambitious and humbling visions for evaluation field building in South Asia. She has successfully positioned herself on a high mountain with a wonderful set of binoculars that enable her to see the entire evaluation landscape of South Asia. She magically sees and describes significant historical forces and…

The International Reading Association's Position Statement on Young Adolescents' Literacy Learning states, "It is during the middle years of schooling that most students refine their reading preferences, become sophisticated readers of informational text, and lay the groundwork for the lifelong reading habit." As the National Assessment of…

This paper concentrates on the public and formal processes of reporting achievement. The topic is significant because employers, managers and graduate schools all use warrants when making selection and governance decisions. Should those warrants turn out to have, as we argue, local meanings, then selection and governance practices, amongst others,…

Definitional issues on misuse of evaluation results are discussed, and examples from the research literature are presented. It is concluded that the concept of misutilization is insufficiently delineated and that a systematic exploration of the subject is warranted. (TJH)

The proposed model for vocational education evaluation is based on an instrumental/incremental definition of evaluation utilization and various subject-specific influences on utilization. Critical components are the identification of issues for vocational education and the application of a dynamic cycle of evaluation for linking evaluation…

The role of the evaluator in insuring utilization and quality of evaluation results is discussed. Topics covered include a utilization-focused vision of accountability, overcoming staff fears of evaluation, eliciting the right information from users, situational responsiveness, and advocacy. (TJH)

This article presents an interview with Michael Patton whose professional evolution has contributed to the way evaluation in the United States is understood and practiced today. Patton is an evaluation and organizational development consultant who spent 18 years at the University of Minnesota (1973-1991), including 5 years as the director of the…