Training is critical for the growth of the evaluation profession as more qualified and competent individuals will be required to meet the increased demand for evaluation. This paper deals with the training needs of professionals and is based on a part of a study on the status and challenges of educational program evaluation in the Asia-Pacific…

Educational needs assessments (hereafter NAs) are inattentive to cost considerations and are frequently dominated by elite stakeholder groups. In this article I make a case for adopting a cost-utility approach, illustrating the argument with data generated in a NA of central library services in a Canadian school district. Using survey data from…

Needs assessment (NA) is generally based on the discrepancy between two conditions--the desired and present states. To date, there has not been an extensive research regarding a number of subtle problems in discrepancy analysis. One such example is missing data for one or both the two states. This leads to highly varied item "n's" for calculating…

Whether agency awareness estimates provided by physicians might be inflated due to agency awareness acquiescence (reporting being aware of a fictitious agency among real ones) was studied with 113 physicians. Few identified variables were correlated with agency awareness acquiescence, although some evidence suggested that social desirability was…

Reports on the interrater reliability of the Educational Needs Questionnaire (Victoria Department of Education, Australia), which was applied to 70 school-age children by their parents and 2 therapists. Results indicate that six of the subscales are reliable when evaluated by therapists and parents, but three subscales did not achieve the…

Needs for help reported by 1,260 homeless men and women in New York (New York) were studied through interviews. Fundamental survival demands were most frequently cited by men and women, with gender differences most apparent in areas in which gender differences have been identified in the general population. (SLD)

Describes a community needs assessment conducted by Native Americans with Native Americans, for Native Americans in the Northeastern United States. Focus groups and interviews were used to gather the data, which pointed to the importance of including culture as a foundation for everything in the community. (Author/SLD)

A needs assessment was conducted to identify the health needs of school district employees in planning a comprehensive employee health service. Survey questionnaires were analyzed to determine characteristics of those individuals who may be at greatest health risk. Results indicate that degree of stress can differentiate health risk predictors.…

It is suggested that Community Mental Health (CMH) should be more involved in the development of comprehensive behavioral services, which is now taking place outside the traditional mental health environment. Implications for CMH planning and financing are discussed, drawing upon a selective literature review and clinical illustrations. (SLD)

Using a needs assessment conducted for the Girl Scouts of Greater Philadelphia as a test case, this article analyzes the conditions facilitating the collection of information needed for strategic planning in a voluntary organization and the related conditions influencing whether or not the information would in fact be used. (TJH)

Describes methods to increase the participation of Hispanic residents in community-needs-assessment activities based on experiences in Tampa (Florida). Includes suggestions for defining the population, estimating population size, selecting the sample, translating instruments, and administering the survey. (SLD)

Discusses the conditions that promote evaluation and their applicability to the current welfare situation. Outlines a welfare reform evaluation agenda, focusing on core activities and investments in evaluation. The major focus should be finding out what is effective for which individuals. (SLD)

Modified evaluation planning tools, such as document models, logic models, and program theory models in planning for the evaluation of the coordination of domestic violence services in metropolitan Baltimore, Maryland. Data from a variety of sources (targeted agencies) show that activities of agencies in the coordinated community response are…

In the studies described, focus groups were conducted with recreation administrators, special-interest groups, and the general public to determine needs and opinions about recreation and leisure activities. The ways in which the groups elicited information about the needs, language, and history of the community are discussed. (SLD)

Applied the capture-recapture model, through a Poisson regression to a time series of data for admissions to treatment from 1987 to 1996 to estimate the number of heroin addicts in Texas who are "at-risk" for treatment. The entire data set produced estimates that were lower and more plausible than those produced by drawing samples,…