The value of a program can be understood as referring not only to outcomes, but also to how those outcomes compare to the types and amounts of resources expended to produce the outcomes. Major potential mistakes and biases in assessing the worth of resources consumed, as well as the value of outcomes produced, are explored. Most of these occur…

The rise of the research center has changed the landscape of U.S. research enter-prise. It has also created a number of evaluation challenges, particularly when considering strategically focused, multifaceted cooperative research centers (CRCs). The author argues that although recent CRC evaluation efforts have gone a long way toward meeting the…

The authors tell about their heterogeneous 91 person research and evaluation unit at an operating foundation in St. Paul, Minnesota. They focus on evaluation for program improvement, one of several purposes of studies they work on. The three authors write from their different manager positions within the unit. Included are the context of the…

This eight chapters of this special issue introduce the use of a template to specify program components as a new tool for program evaluation. The template articulates the components needed for program delivery and provides a systematic method for assessing program implementation. (SLD)

Professional development has moved from the periphery of teachers' professional lives to center stage, clearly recognized today as one of the key factors that shape teachers' ability to reach and teach all students successfully. To be effective, any professional development program must pay close attention to changes in teacher classroom…

The purpose of this issue of "New Directions for Evaluation" is to examine, comparatively, the practical application of theorists' approaches to evaluation by examining four evaluations of the same case. The thought is that when asked to evaluate the same program (holding the case constant), the practical distinctions between theorists' approaches…

Building the evaluation capacity of K-12 schools is clearly an important goal for the field of evaluation, especially in the current educational environment, which is dominated by issues of accountability and high-stakes testing. The focus on student achievement has forced schools to become more data-driven as they attempt to analyze test scores…