Program evaluation can play a critical role in supporting high quality implementation of social programs to help them achieve their goal of social impact. Evaluation scholars have developed a wide range of strategies to help build programs' internal evaluation capacity in an effort to support meaningful use of evaluation. However, the evaluation…

This study examines participants' responses to first year students' street performances as a non-placement work-integrated learning (WIL) activity over a two year period. The purpose of the study was to determine: (1) community perception, (2) continuous improvement, and (3) future needs. Data was collected through surveying participants'…

This edition features current research, practice, and policy related to the Joyce Foundation's Shifting Gears initiative beginning with an interview with Whitney Smith, Manager of the Employment Program at the Joyce Foundation. Julie Strawn, Center for Law and Social Policy, presents a national perspective of basic skills reform efforts similar to…

This article describes the 1st-year evaluation of a community-wide parent and family involvement program initiated in a midsized Southeast community and school district. The program consists of three major components: community-wide efforts, school-home communication, and home involvement. Formative and summative evaluation data were gathered…

This is the fourth report of a process evaluation of Palm Beach County Prime Time, Inc., an intermediary organization dedicated to improving the quality of afterschool programs, by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. It covers the 2007-2008 program year, which was the inaugural year of Prime Time's formal Quality Improvement System (QIS)…

"The Electric Company" ("TEC") television show won the hearts of children because it made learning fun. Thirty years later, the iconic show has returned with the goal of not only teaching literacy, but also numeracy (the ability to work with and understand numbers) and mathematics vocabulary in a fun, entertaining, and engaging…

This report covers the third year of Chapin Hall's process evaluation of the Prime Time Initiative of Palm Beach County, Florida, a system-building effort to strengthen the quality of after-school programs in the county. During the past two decades, the after-school field has expanded enormously, partly in response to increasing concern about…

The responsive model of evaluation has been seen as an alternative to formal evaluation models. This model was used for the evaluation of a Certificate in Industrial Relations program in a Quebec French university. This study focused on two main objectives: first, the local utility of the program being assessed, along with the major problems…

Levels of Use (LOU) interviews can be used for formative evaluation purposes in an intermediate education agency. Programs and services for training teachers provided to districts are evaluated. LOU interviews give program staff unique information for improving programs. Program improvement is aided by LOU interviews because information is…

An external evaluation was conducted to assess the model for infusing career education and liberal arts education developed at William James College (Michigan). The primary purpose of the evaluation was to assess the broad impact of the career education project on William James College (WJC) and to measure specifically the extent to which WJC…

In 1993 the National Science Foundation approved the funding of a 5-year program to enhance science education within a large school district in the southern United States. The initial grant funded training for 34 mentors and identified 7 primary goals and 31 activities toward those goals. During the project, two teachers in each elementary school…

The emphasis of a formative evaluation research study was on identifying exemplary linkage arrangements between the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) and education service providers in Virginia. The study had two primary phases: the case study phase (an exploratory and issue-generating process) and the judicial evaluation model--JEM…

Results of a process evaluation of dropout prevention programs in the Leon County (Florida) school district during the school year 1989-90 are presented. Altogether, 11 dropout programs were operationalized in that school year. The methodology used for developing a problem survey among teachers and administrators, the results of the evaluation,…

The National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE) was consulted to improve the formative evaluation design for the Principles of Technology (PT) curriculum materials developed by the Center for Occupational Research and Development (CORD) and the Agency for Instructional Technology (AIT). Because the NCRVE entered the formative…

The formative report provided the Austin Independent School District personnel with information useful for planning the remaining activities for the 1973-74 Bilingual/Bicultural Project and the activities for the 1974-75 Project. Emphasis was on what had been done to evaluate the 1973-74 Project, the data which was or would be available for the…