Evaluation is crucial for writing centers. Given increasingly tight budgets, writing centers should conduct more sophisticated evaluations. Writing centers should turn to educational program evaluation and select general types of evaluation most appropriate for writing centers, and, congruent with the appropriate types, writing centers should…

Since 1992, Vermont has been pioneering the development of community partnerships for improving social well-being, using indicators to track success. The working definition of a community, for outcome purposes, is the area served by a school supervisory union. Vermont is divided into 60 such supervisory unions (school districts), but…

The report describes the Instructional Program Review Process at Austin Community College (Texas). The report includes program review process timeline and schedule. The Instructional Program Review Process focuses on issues of need, cost, and effectiveness of instructional programs. It provides for identification of improvements, includes…

This paper describes key issues in conducting impact evaluations of corporate eLearning and reports the results of a study that evaluated the impact (including return on investment) of an eLearning implementation by a large telecommunications company. The program was designed to "multi-skill" over 1,000 Customer Service Officers (CSOs)…

Developed for the America Reads initiative, this paper presents the LEARNS (Linking Education and America Reads through National Service) Literacy Assessment Profile (LLAP), a student assessment system that is designed to improve providers' ability to deliver high quality literacy programs to students, assess students' literacy understanding, set…

Describes the Instructional Quality Inventory (IQI) for formative evaluation of systematically developed instructional programs, its classification scheme for objectives and test items, and procedures for checking programs for adequacy, consistency and presentation. Accounts of two studies are given to support the usefulness of the IQI. (EAO)

Evaluates a correctional treatment program to demonstrate how the research design and not the treatment intervention may be responsible for outcomes. The program, Project Papillon, used group counseling and rational emotive therapy to treat drug abuse. Suggestions are offered for designing future evaluations more accurately. (Author/JAC)

Evaluated a 16-week nutrition education program that combined a mass media campaign with provision of point-of-purchase materials in supermarkets. Small gains in nutrition knowledge were found, especially among those recalling exposure to the educational materials. Evidence of short-term increases in target food usage were also found. (Author/JN)

Describes a four phase strategy used to identify, critique and improve an existing student services program consisting of collecting information, exchanging information among service units and faculty, publishing a student services handbook, and evaluating existing service effectiveness. (Author/JAC)

Discussion of the accountability of university libraries and assessment methods to show library effectiveness focuses on two assessment tools developed at Bowling Green State University: one program-level assessment which involved a student library skills assessment survey; and one class-level assessment which involved one-shot library instruction…

Contingent valuation (CV) is used to obtain more complete estimates of the economic value of benefits of preschool education for handicapped children. A general approach for use of CV in cost-benefit analysis of educational programs and use of the CV interview with 80 parents of handicapped preschoolers are described. (SLD)

Describes several approaches to the development of performance indicators for evaluating the effectiveness of safety training in the nuclear power industry. A rationale is presented for a method of generating measures of effectiveness that uses criteria developed by several experts with different viewpoints, and the benefits of this method are…

This commentary affirms that the methodology proposed in a paper by Richard A. Winett and others (EC 601 539) may be useful in conducting social validity assessments and applying these assessment data to improve behavioral interventions. The study of accurate and valid assessment of consumer satisfaction is encouraged. (JDD)

This commentary on assessing the social validity of behavior-change programs examines which groups should be included in the assessment, whether social validity assessment should be required, and whether new methods are needed. The paper notes that social validation should be an interactive process between researcher and consumer. (JDD)

The practice and methods of federal research impact assessment are described. Three areas of evaluation (selection of research project, research review, and postresearch assessment) are examined, and different evaluation methods (qualitative, retrospective, and quantitative) are compared. Peer evaluation, the most common assessment method, is seen…