Purpose: District effectiveness research (DER) is an emerging field concerned with identifying the organizational structures, administration, and leadership practices at the school district level that help districts find success with all of their students across the schools within the system. This work has mirrored much of the early school…

This research investigates the effect of a web-based model, named "Practicing, Reflecting, and Revising with Web-based Assessment and Test Analysis system (P2R-WATA) Assessment Literacy Development Model," on enhancing assessment knowledge and perspectives of secondary in-service teachers, and adopts a single group experimental research…

In this chapter, the author proposes a model for assessing institutional effectiveness. The Volkwein model for assessing institutional effectiveness consists of five parts that summarize the steps for assessing institutions, programs, faculty, and students. The first step in the model distinguishes the dual purposes of institutional effectiveness:…

This report examines theoretical and empirical issues related to the statistical power of impact estimates under clustered regression discontinuity (RD) designs. The theory is grounded in the causal inference and HLM modeling literature, and the empirical work focuses on commonly-used designs in education research to test intervention effects on…

Evaluative statements from alumni have legitimacy with both internal and external stakeholders. Thus, alumni studies can provide valuable evidence of institutional effectiveness and lend themselves to both locally designed and commercial survey instruments for data collection. Under ideal conditions, the results of alumni studies equip faculty and…

In current psychological research, the analysis of data from computer-based assessments or experiments is often confined to accuracy scores. Response times, although being an important source of additional information, are either neglected or analyzed separately. In this article, a new model is developed that allows the simultaneous analysis of…

Three different approaches to metaevaluation are described and shown to have been applied to the study of Project Follow Through. These approaches include evaluation of primary evaluations, integrative meta-analysis in which results from several primary evaluations are combined, and secondary analysis involving the independent reanalysis of the…

A consumer-oriented program evaluation of a master's level clinical psychology training program is reported. A goal attainment model of evaluation was employed, requiring specification of program goals, development of goal-related objectives and hypotheses, and formulation of recommendations for program modification based on results achieved.…

Guidelines are presented for project evaluation techniques with emphasis on the management of a project or an educational program. Part One--general considerations--discusses the four basic concepts of the decision-making evaluation model: objectives, evaluative criteria, analysis/synthesis, and evaluation. Stages in the evaluation of a system are…

This paper focuses on the mechanics of assessing the impact of educational technology. The basics of program evaluation, research design, data collection and analysis, and report generation are covered to provide useful information to those responsible for program evaluation research and to decision makers, who are the usual recipients of…

Although "quality of education" issues are currently popular in educational evaluation, the author argues for an empirically resolvable evaluation paradigm: Given the target population, program goals, and boundary conditions, how do educational treatments compare in terms of learning effects? Agreement on pre-set specifications and the…

With the view that social scientists conduct too little exploratory research, the author outlines the methods and attitudes of the exploratory analyst and describes the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) as a source of research data. Exploratory analysis, in which no paradigm is used, is contrasted with confirmatory research, which…

This paper presents the Discrepancy Evaluation Model (DEM) as an overall strategy or framework for both the improvement and assessment of effectiveness of simulation/games. While application of the evaluation model to simulation/games rather than educational programs requires modification of the model, its critical features remain. These include:…

A paradigm for the recalibration of teacher-made assessment that assesses and evaluates in one operation is formulated. The effort to make the classroom the primary source of educational research activity is contingent on redefining educational research as empirical and not experimental. This emphasizes that the empirical analysis of instructional…

Although the technology of needs assessment has made progress in recent years, much still remains to be learned about how to determine the kinds of training methods and programs that should exist. Of the technology currently available, most is more suited to application with learner groups that are "closed" and "captive" rather…