Over the past two decades, American institutions have been expected to include systematic program reviews to meet accrediting standards, either by independent or governmental review agencies. Program evaluation is critical for several reasons: it provides systematic ways to assess what needs improvement or what needs changing and it provides ways…

This paper describes two models of assessment of undergraduate business learning in two similar universities located on the East Coast of the United States. Both models stem from seeking continued accreditation by the AACSB and are focused on a group of student skills identified by the faculty as essential to undergraduate business education. The…

During the past three years, we have developed and implemented an enterprise information system (EIS) to reengineer and facilitate the administrative process for preparing and teaching distance learning courses in a midsized-to-large university (with 23,000 students). The outcome of the implementation has been a streamlined and efficient process…

Total quality management interventions and assessments must be more theory grounded and contingency based to advance understanding of its applicability, potential, and pitfalls in the public sector. Two-step and stage-state evaluative models can be used to ameliorate its shortcomings. (JOW)

These four papers are from a symposium that was facilitated by Nancy Dixon at the 1995 conference of the Academy of Human Resource Development (HRD). "Reliability Testing of Multirater Feedback" (Wim J. Nijhof, Anne Jager) focuses on testing the reliability and validity of the multirater feedback system. Findings are reported that conclude that…

This document contains four papers from a symposium on organization development and change. "The Effectiveness of Total Quality Management: A Response to the Critics" (Douglas H. Smith, Ralph G. Lewis) identifies four effectiveness principles: customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, speaking with facts, and respect for people. "Fast Cycle…

Presents a model of quality assurance for colleges and universities, distilled from key concepts in the literature about quality assurance and higher education culture and practice. The model has continuous quality improvement in student learning at its center, and includes elements of institutional values, faculty evaluation and development,…

The Engineering Technologies Division of the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) in Canada has developed a systems approach to program review called Competency Profile Development (CPD). This approach utilizes a combination of organizational communication, project management, management-by-objectives, a modified Developing A Curriculum…

A problem that exists in business and industrial training in particular, and in adult education in general, is that program evaluation is treated as an add-on activity, usually performed only at the request of someone outside the training organization. The relevant knowledge in two separate fields, quality improvement and innovation diffusion, can…

The research project described in this paper was conducted for three purposes: (1) to identify the program evaluation needs of secondary vocational educators in Wisconsin; (2) to identify those components of the state's previous evaluation system that educators wanted to keep; and (3) to develop a conceptual framework for revising Wisconsin's…

This guide is intended to give workforce investment boards (WIBs) a practical framework for overseeing the performance of one-stop career centers. The introduction presents background information on a proposed quality assurance framework and the guide's format and development. The first two sections explain the importance of quality assurance to…

This document is intended to guide further education colleges and work-based learning providers through some of the commonly used tools, techniques, and theories of quality management. The following are among the topics discussed: (1) various ways of defining quality; methods used by organizations to achieve quality (quality control, quality…

The passage of the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Amendments of 1998 (Perkins III) and the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) marked a new era in the performance accountability partnership among the states, the U.S. Department of Education, and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). Evaluation of vocational education…