This Digest addresses the benefits of formative assessment and provides examples and resources to support its implementation. Formative assessment is the diagnostic use of assessment to provide feedback to teachers and students over the course of instruction. Since the goal of formative assessment is to gain an understanding of what students know…

Areas of evaluation are identified in which the formative/summative distinction appears inadequate: (1) knowledge-generating evaluations aimed at conceptual use; (2) developmental evaluation; and (3) use of evaluation to support intervention or empower participants. An argument is also made for the effectiveness of feedback that cannot be…

How managers develop following their individual assessment is explored, examining links between steps in the development process, and testing several hypotheses about the relationships between environmental characteristics and individual development. A framework proposed by L. W. Hellervik, J. F. Hazucha, and R. J. Schneider (1992) suggests that…

A procedure is presented for communicating evaluation results to various publics in an effort to achieve wider use of the results. A combination of strategies from the evaluation specialist and public relations specialists first requires an analysis of the perceptions of people with whom the evaluators wish to communicate. This analysis must…

Camp White Eagle (Illinois) developed an evaluation process to assess the positive effects of its wilderness adventure program on adjudicated adolescents. Discusses aspects of the evaluation process applicable to other camps: reviewing program elements, formulating questions, choosing the design, developing measurements, collecting data,…

Evaluation management requires a system for measuring, improving, and accounting for quality. The Institute for Program Evaluation in the United States General Accounting Office is developing such a system. (Author)

Compares the responses of administrators, teachers, parents, and students to a questionnaire about purposes, communication qualities, effects, and philosophy of student evaluations. Suggests evaluations can serve as positive educational motivators that reward student efforts and enhance student learning, while avoiding critical, negative,…

The expectations of 23 fourth- and 16 fifth-year teacher education students about teacher evaluation were compared. Students had many similar expectations about evaluation and feedback, but fourth-year students were more concerned with the tone of the evaluation while fifth-year students were more concerned about its content. (SLD)

This study was conducted to see if evaluative feedback from students that includes reference values (students' expectations on teaching quality) has an effect on acceptance by teachers and relevance for them. Also examined was the degree to which teachers' goal setting is influenced by feedback of student ratings with or without reference values.…

An integrative causal process model of evaluation utilization variables is presented. The model was developed through a traditional approach to literature review that lists results from published studies and relates these to the research topic, and through an approach that tries to integrate the models found in the literature search. Meta-modeling…

A survey of 43 high school principals about the usefulness of feedback reports generated through the evaluation of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation's Community Health Promotion Grants Program suggests that principals found the reports very valuable in a number of ways, especially in designing and implementing programs. (SLD)

Formative evaluation consists of assessing educational programs or other kinds of educational products while they are being developed to help shape them into their final forms. This publication is intended for those whose job it is to develop new programs and products or to evaluate them during development. Topics discussed include: (1) the nature…

The Teacher Continuous Feedback Technique (CFT), makes it possible for teachers to collect continuous student critiques of their teaching. The data collected can then be used as the basis for individual faculty development. A selected number of students are requested to write an anonymous critique each class meeting. In order to track performance,…

A project conducted by Britain's Further Education Unit: (1) identified and evaluated strategies used by Educational Guidance Services for Adults (EGSAs) to feed back to providers of learning opportunities the unmet needs of adult clients with particular reference to the unemployed and unwaged; (2) identified and evaluated mechanisms used by…

Discusses techniques for improving training program design and administration through effective evaluation. Describes three sample case studies that compare trainers, facility/location, and course content; trainee reactions are plotted on a graph. Presents trainee feedback forms that identify aspects of a session, rate effectiveness, and record…