Evaluations are considered of key importance for a well-functioning democracy. Against this background, it is vital to assess whether and how evaluation models approach the role of citizens. This paper is the first in presenting a review of citizen involvement in the main evaluation models which are commonly distinguished in the field. We present…

Political science is deeply but reluctantly involved in learning outcomes assessment. A 2013 survey reveals that political science departments are using assessment data strategically to satisfy mandates and obtain resources. By applying criteria developed by Frickel and Gross, outcomes assessment in higher education can be understood as an example…

College and career readiness is crucial to success in postsecondary education, employment, and independent living. The College and Career Readiness for Transition (CCR4T) assessment is valid and reliable and can assist in transition planning for students with disabilities. The CCR4T assessment was designed for planning with students with and…

Marvin Alkin and Jean King published three AJE articles on evaluation use over four years, a coherent and comprehensive series covering the historical development of evaluation use, definitions and factors associated with use and misuse, and theories of evaluation use and influence, concluding with assessment of the first 50 years of use research.…

Recent improvements in advanced artificial intelligence (AI), including large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, and the subsequent release of these models into the public domain have instantly provided the public with technical capabilities that previously required years of engineering education to acquire. The ability of these models to…

The COVID-19 pandemic struck during a period of extreme polarization in American politics. Unsurprisingly, responses to it quickly became politicized despite increasingly clear findings from scientific and public health communities about the most effective approaches for limiting its spread. We ask how the politicization affected pandemic response…

This Data Point compares the sources of information in evaluating teacher performance and how the information is used by traditional public school and public charter school principals in the United States. It uses data from the public school principal questionnaire from the 2017-18 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), a nationally…

As theory-based evaluation (TBE) engages in situations where multiple stakeholders help develop complex program theory about dynamic phenomena in politically contested settings, it becomes difficult to develop and use program theory without ambiguity. The purpose of this article is to explore ambiguity as a fruitful perspective that helps TBE face…

In an era of ever-deepening budget cuts and a concomitant demand for substantiated programs, many organizations have elected to conduct internal program evaluations. Internal evaluations offer advantages (e.g., enhanced evaluator program knowledge and ease of data collection) but may confront important challenges, including credibility threats,…

Imagine a student using an intelligent tutoring system. A researcher records the correctness and time of each of your attempts at solving a math problem, nothing more. With no names, no birth dates, no connections to the school, you would think it impossible to track the answers back to the class. Yet, class sections have been identified with no…

The purpose of this article was to explore on how course evaluation, decision making process, the methodology of evaluation and various roles of evaluation interact in the process of curriculum development. In the process of this exploration, the characteristics the types of evaluation, purposes of course evaluation, methodology of evaluation,…

In this article, we discuss the potential of a critical approach to standardized tests and their results. In particular, we explore and discuss this potential not only for the assessment of students' mathematical competence, but also for teachers' professional development. We identify and describe two kinds of potential: the Informational…

International large-scale student assessments (ILSAs) in education represent a valuable source of information for policy-makers, not only on student achievements, but also on their relationship with different contextual factors. The results are partly described in the official studies' reports; more can be derived from the publicly released data…

The assessment movement that has emerged on American college campuses over the last twenty years emphasizes the need to carefully articulate the particular outcomes colleges seek for students, and it demands that faculty and administrators provide evidence of their students' success with respect to these outcomes. It also requires that this…

A misconception exists that validity may refer only to the "interpretation" of test scores and not to the "uses" of those scores. The development and evolution of validity theory illustrate test score interpretation was a primary focus in the earliest days of modern testing, and that validating interpretations derived from test…