Like instruments used in afterschool programs to assess children's social and emotional growth or to evaluate staff members' performance, instruments used to evaluate program quality should be free from bias. Practitioners and researchers alike want to know that assessment instruments, whatever their type or intent, treat all people fairly and do…

Evaluation occurs within a specific context and is influenced by the economic, political, historical, and social forces that shape that context. The culture of evaluation is thus very much embedded in the culture of accountability that currently prevails in public sector institutions, policies, and program. As such, our understanding of the…

This article addresses the leadership preparation line of inquiry developed in the past decade by the University Council for Educational Administration/Learning and Teaching in Educational Leadership Special Interest Group Taskforce on Evaluating Leadership Preparation Programs, and it particularly addresses the series of survey instruments…

As bibliometric indicators are objective, reliable, and cost-effective measures of peer-reviewed research outputs, they are expected to play an increasingly important role in research assessment/management. Recently, a bibliometric approach was developed and integrated within the evaluation framework of research funded by the National Cancer…

Never before in the history of the teaching profession has there been such a need for comprehensive evaluation of all teacher preparation programs, most especially professional development schools (PDSs). This need is driven not only by the pressures of the age of accountability, but also by the need for the PDS movement to act ethically and…

Researchers have linked self-efficacy to performance, but they have not investigated the relationship between self-efficacy and knowledge and skills tests within a training evaluation setting, which is the main purpose of this study. Additionally, researchers have acknowledged self-efficacy scores may be distorted as a result of assessors…

In this article, the authors examine evaluation process use in a large multilevel, multisite core evaluation. This case highlights the nature of the evaluation processes of the Collaboratives for Excellence in Teacher Preparation (CETP) core evaluation in terms of four categories: (1) social processing; (2) engagement; (3) involvement; and (4)…

This special series focused on treatment integrity in the child mental health and education field is timely. The articles do a laudable job of reviewing (a) the current status of treatment integrity research and measurement, (b) existing conceptual models of treatment integrity, and (c) the limitations of prior research. Overall, this thoughtful…

With an increasing prevalence of virtual high school programs in the United States, a better understanding of evaluative tools available for distance educators and administrators is needed. These evaluative tools would provide opportunities for assessment and a determination of success within virtual schools. This article seeks to provide an…

Beyond the obvious acquisition of the three "R's"--reading, writing and arithmetic--many other benefits derive from learning. Increases in self-esteem and confidence have often been cited as consistent, if unanticipated, outcomes of learning and have been achieved even when there has been limited gain in the competency being learned.…

Draws on findings from evaluations of recent reform initiatives in Alabama, North Carolina, and Ohio to suggest that performance-measurement systems for state child-welfare programs must adapt to changing circumstances, especially when improvements in one area can influence standards and expectations in others. (Author/KB)

Describes how child well-being has been conceptualized and measured in research on family foster care, and discusses the essential dimensions that should be included in a useful measure of child well-being. Discusses challenges in incorporating measures of child well-being into ongoing evaluations of family foster care. (Author)

Not all policy questions can be addressed by social experiments. Nonexperimental evaluation methods provide an alternative to experimental designs but their results depend on untestable assumptions. This paper presents evidence on the reliability of propensity score matching (PSM), which estimates treatment effects under the assumption of…

This Support Document was produced by the authors based on their research for the report, "Assessing and Acknowledging Learning through Non-Accredited Community Adult Language, Literacy and Numeracy Programs," and is an added resource for further information. There were five phases of this project: Phase 1 comprised further interrogation…

Although targeted explicitly at changing adult behaviors and outcomes, welfare reform has direct implications for children. This guidebook details the results of the Project on State-Level Child Outcomes, designed to assist states in measuring child outcomes in the context of welfare reform programs. The guidebook is presented in three sections.…