Written in a refreshing conversational style, this text thoroughly prepares students, program administrators, and new evaluators to conduct evaluations or to use them in their work. The book's question-driven focus and clear discussions about the importance of fostering evaluation use by building collaborative relationships with stakeholders set…

A survey was sent to members of the Evaluation Use Topical Interest Group (TIG) to determine their perceptions about and experiences with evaluation use. Responses from 282 members show agreement on the major purposes of evaluation and an increased use of performance-results oriented and formative evaluations. (SLD)

This paper proposes a humanistic approach that may not be evaluation as commonly regarded, but it does have a much greater chance to enact program improvement. It assumes that program developers and directors really want their activities to be effective and relevant. The role of the evaluator is that of facilitator, that of a linking pin to…

The evaluation of second language programs is an educational task with profound potential for improving pedagogical practice. Evaluators who educate perform more than just a "service" function by helping people to learn, develop themselves, and refine their abilities to work more effectively. (CB)

A good formative evaluator, who helps programs become as effective as possible, behaves remarkably like a good personal coach. Nine ways in which a formative evaluator can help a program manager are listed, and implications for practicing evaluators and the evaluation profession are detailed. (SLD)

This article describes the on-going evaluation of a pilot program characterized by: (1) cooperation between program managers and evaluators; (2) first-hand knowledge about the implementation of the pilot; and (3) a focus on summative and formative evaluations. Evaluators participated actively in the design of the pilot. (Author/SLD)

The evaluator's role in planning/implementing an evaluation of a new program to train school administrators in performance appraisal skills is described. This case study of the evaluators' broadening roles uses E. Chelimsky's continuum (1987) to analyze political processes and decision making involved in the evaluation of a state-funded program.…

The chapters in this book address four major concerns in the field of curriculum evaluation. The first chapter focuses on the formative evaluation of educational programs, concentrating on the link between program development and formative evaluation. The second chapter--"Evaluating Curriculum Implementation"--presents a classification scheme for…

Events that brought independent evaluators together to address common problems and issues in the area of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) education are described, focusing on development and accomplishments of the collaboration. The foundation stemmed from the funding agency's insistence that each program identify an evaluator. (SLD)

Point of entry problems are faced by evaluators when asked to start an evaluation at an inappropriate time or to perform an inappropriate study. The fundamental purpose of evaluation is to help improve services. Guidelines are presented for choosing when to do a context, input, process, or product evaluation. (GDC)

The status of formal recommendations is different in the naturalistic evaluation model than in the traditional empirical model. The evaluation of a high school peer support program for alcohol abuse prevention illustrates that reader-generated recommendations may have more usefulness and impact than do evaluator-generated ideas. (SLD)

A well-planned and well-conducted evaluation can provide useful information to funding agencies, sponsoring institutions, instructors, and participants. Evaluating an instructional program, such as a workshop or institute, involves collecting, organizing, analyzing, and reporting data about several features of the program and its impact on the…

What users of student ratings of instruction know about ratings and what they need to know to make valid and reliable use of ratings data were studied. An item bank of 153 multiple-choice items was developed from sources of information about student ratings. The full item bank had five subsets: (1) knowledge of ratings concepts; (2) knowledge of…