A 19-step general evaluation model is described through its four stages: identifying problems, prescribing program solutions, evaluating the operation of the program, and evaluating the effectiveness of the model. The role of the evaluator in decision making is also explored. (RAO)

Decision Support Systems (DSS) are automated information systems designed to aid administrative decision making. A literature review on the design, implementation, and evaluation of DSS, suggests that evaluators act as liasons between designers and managers, identify and collect data for DSS, and evaluate DSS. (Author/EGS)

Program design can aid problem-solving or decision-making tasks faced by evaluators. It can be used to facilitate evaluation planning through the definition of program boundaries and the generation and focusing of evaluation questions. Further, it can provide evaluation information about theoretical, historical, and political contexts of a…

Program administrators for 64 Elementary Secondary Education Act (ESEA) programs in New York City were asked to respond to a questionnaire rating scale concerning the helpfulness and quantity of information that had been provided to them by the program evaluators. The rating scale categorized areas of administrative decision making in five…

Organizational development (OD) is a systematic approach to (1) identifying the needs, problems, and objectives of an organization; (2) providing feedback needed for decisions regarding design and implementation of change strategies; (3) implementing and monitoring actions; and (4) evaluating their effects. Decisions in all phases of OD are…

Qualitive data from interviews with individuals and observations of group meetings were gathered from 16 school districts that participated in a study of school district uses of evaluation and test data. The findings are organized around a series of discrete topics presented in a set of independent papers. The title essay, "Working Knowledge,"…

The author advances the argument that evaluation is unique not in purpose, but in environment. The evaluator operates within ethical, organizational, and political contexts in order to achieve utilization of a context-responsive evaluation. (LMO)

Evaluation is an act of persuasion directed to a specific audience concerning the solution of a problem. The process of evaluation is prescribed by the nature of knowledge--which is generally complex, always uncertain (in varying degrees), and not always propositional--and by the nature of logic, which is always selective. In the process of…

Four evaluation methods for determining educational policy are objectivism; subjectivism; emotive-imperative; and instrumentalism. For the objectivist, the rationale for undertaking an evaluation is based on empirical verification or non-verification of claims of existing policies or activities. Secondly, the objectivist is interested in…