Accreditation is a critical process in maintaining standards of consistency and excellence in the academic preparation of students for their chosen profession. While academic programs, professional associations, and credentialing organizations all recognize the importance of programmatic accreditation in recreational therapy professional…

This article compares the purposes and content of the four foundational documents of the American Evaluation Association (AEA): the Program Evaluation Standards, the AEA Public Statement on Cultural Competence in Evaluation, the AEA Evaluator Competencies, and the AEA Guiding Principles. This reflection on alignment is an early effort in the third…

Many seem to believe that researcher-made tests are unnecessary, if not inappropriate, for evaluating reading comprehension interventions. We suggest that this view reflects a zeitgeist in which researcher-made (proximal) tests that align with the researchers' interventions are closely scrutinized and often devalued, whereas commercially developed…

California's Commission on Teacher Credentialing (Commission) requires all programs of preliminary multiple and single subject teacher preparation to use a Commission-approved Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA) as one of the program completion requirements for prospective teacher candidates. Three TPA models were approved by the Commission: (1)…

Using qualitative content analysis (Cohen et al., 2007), we examined the expectations of states in the United States regarding program evaluation content for school counselor licensure. Results show that 43 states maintain some form of program evaluation expectations for licensure, up from the 19 identified by Trevisan (2000). Twenty-eight states…

In this article, we present a reconceptualization of sport as a series of collaborative contests with players on different teams scoring goals cooperatively: players on both sides lose or both sides win together depending on whether they can improve the scores they earn in overcoming limitations and obstacles by working with the other team. When…

Energy concepts are taught in many schools, but children rarely have an opportunity to grapple with energy problems and work on their own solutions. This study explores the impacts of Connect Science, a service-learning (SL) program developed to enhance elementary students' energy literacy in the United States. Program impacts were explored within…

This paper presents evidence confirming the validity of the RD design in the Reading Recovery study by examining the ability of the RD design to replicate the 1st grade results observed in the original i3 RCT focused on short-term impacts. Over 1,800 schools participated in the RD study over all four cohort years. The RD design used cutoff-based…

The goal of this study was to further evaluate the impact of IXL Math on math learning outcomes. Using a quasi-experimental design with matched treatment and control groups, this analysis utilized data from 312 public schools in Mississippi during the 2021-2022 school year. The middle school analysis included 272 schools (136 treatment, 136…

In 1964, Deaf and hearing stakeholders convened at Ball State Teachers College in Muncie, Indiana, to discuss the state of signed language interpreting in the United States. One topic of discussion was the competencies these interpreters should exhibit. Four decades later, Witter-Merithew and Johnson (2005) described American Sign Language…

Research on mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) has proliferated in recent years and the integration of mindfulness-based programs in school settings has been at the forefront of implementation research. Recent reviews of studies evaluating the efficacy of school-based mindfulness programs have produced mixed findings, which may in part be due…

Engaged in the evaluation of LDC tools since June 2011, UCLA's National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) is using multiple data sources and a quasi-experimental design to examine LDC implementation and impact in two cohorts of schools in two large, urban school districts. This report presents the results…

Engaged inthe evaluation of LDC tools since June 2011, UCLA's National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) is using multiple data sources and a quasi-experimental design to examine LDC implementation and impact in two cohorts of schools in two large, urban school districts. This report presents the results on…

Over the last several years, a growing number of cities have invested in early care and education for 3- and 4-year-old children, known as "preschool." This paper aims to aid cities in planning preschool programs by outlining a range of factors to consider. We largely do not make recommendations, but rather try to identify a range of…

This study discusses the effectiveness of a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) program spanning grades six through eight in a traditional, urban school district located in Northeastern Ohio. The history and expressed need for STEM education within post-steel producing and economically depressed regions are discussed. Important…