Offering key concepts about how the informed use of data can translate into highly effective school leadership, this seventh volume in "The Soul of Educational Leadership" series demonstrates how educational leaders can apply data strategically to strengthen school leadership and significantly improve professional learning, students' learning…

As teachers and leaders are well aware, schools and districts across the country have invested enormous amounts of money and energy in creating data management systems so that teachers can access information about their students' performance. With these systems in place, the focus now needs to move to the structures and allocation of time that…

In a survey of 128 manufacturing employees, the perception that performance appraisal had developmental uses was associated with satisfaction with appraisals and appraisers. Reaction to the evaluation did not depend on the outcome of the appraisal or its perceived fairness. (SK)

This workbook was created as a "do it yourself" tool for helping organizations and career counseling services develop policies and standards to enhance the quality of services. The process is aimed at helping articulate policies that are sensible for each organization and challenging and achievable by staff. It is intended to be a…

Course evaluation data can be a meaningful resource to improve the human resource development (HRD) practitioner's decision making. Recommended properties of an effective evaluation form are separation of the overall evaluation from the evaluation of specific aspects; a one-to-nine rating scale; strong, explicit verbal anchors on the rating scale;…

This article presents a discussion of field utilization of staff development activities in the context of three separate training programs. Specifically, classroom implementation of knowledge and skills gained by participants in their training sessions was assessed via the Levels of Use (LoU) interview system. (Author/LMO)

During the 1986-87 school year, the state of Texas implemented the Texas Teacher Appraisal System (TTAS), a comprehensive and generic system for improving instruction. This teacher orientation manual has been developed to increase teachers' knowledge of this new appraisal system. The first section provides an overview of the TTAS, including its…

The professional developmental activities of participants after assessment were studied in a situation where no specific developmental program was provided by the assessment center or the sponsoring organization. Characteristics of participants were studied to determine if certain types of persons are more likely to conduct follow-up activities to…

This manual provides guidelines for needs assessments based on training and development programs designed and used by business and industry. The guide defines needs and needs assessments and describes how to implement the process, using an eight-level needs assessment. Information is provided on stages of needs assessment, the process of assessing…

This proposal is predicated on the assumption that in order to improve instruction, formative assistance must be conceptually separated from summative evaluation. Teacher improvement requires the involvement of other teachers, department chairs, students, parents, and administrators, whereas summative evaluation is separate from the growth process…

The Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) organized a conference in May 1994 around the theme of assessment for better student learning. The chapters in this collection constitute a selection of the 32 conference presentations. All have been rewritten for this book, although Dary Erwin's chapter (chapter 3) was especially written…

This literature review and evaluation "tool kit" provides a summary of the research literature about the evaluation of large-scale intervention policies like the Blueprint for the Future program of the Scarborough (Ontario, Canada) Board of Education. This report is intended to assist in creating a realistic plan for the Blueprint…

Basic issues in workplace education evaluation can be structured into five discussion questions. The first is who wants to know what information for what purpose. The "who" constitutes the program's stakeholders both at and beyond the program level. Further inquiry is then needed to determine what kind of information these stakeholders typically…

This training manual consists of two major sections: a "Handbook for Conducting an Elementary Program Review" and the "Elementary Program Quality Criteria" document. The handbook is designed to assist a program review team in (1) judging the effect of curriculum, instructional methodologies, and effectiveness strategies on…

This document presents the four case studies that constituted the major sources for "Teacher Evaluation: A Study of Effective Practices" by the same authors. The study was undertaken to find teacher evaluation processes that produce information useful to school districts in helping teachers improve or in making personnel decisions. The…