Program evaluation is an essential practice for providers of behavior analytic services, as it helps providers understand the extent to which they are achieving their intended mission to the community they serve. A proposed method for conducting such evaluations, is through the use of a consecutive case series design, for which cases are…

This paper explores using data mining in English teaching assessment in higher education within the 'Internet + Education' era. Traditional assessment methods struggle to meet modern teaching needs. By collecting diverse data like student performance and learning behavior, and employing data mining, a comprehensive assessment model is built. This…

Higher education professionals often are tasked with providing evidence to stakeholders that programs, services, and practices implemented on their campuses contribute to student success. Furthermore, in the absence of a solid base of evidence related to effective practices, higher education researchers and practitioners are left questioning what…

A growing understanding of the importance of children's earliest years has led to an increasing desire to measure early childhood development (ECD) outcomes. There are now nearly 150 tools for measuring ECD outcomes internationally, which can make it challenging to choose an appropriate measurement tool for a given measurement effort. This…

Project schedules are logic models that focus on the timing of program activities. Value derives from the fact that schedule changes are not random. Why they occur, and how long they last, can reveal information that would not be easily revealed with other approaches to evaluation. Also, using project schedules as logic models forges a strong link…

This article examines factors that could have influenced whether evaluations of U.S. government--funded foreign assistance programs completed in 2015 had considered unintended consequences. Logit regression models indicate that the odds of considering unintended consequences were increased when all or most of seven standard data collection methods…

With today's technology, Extension professionals have a variety of tools available for program evaluation. This article describes an innovative platform called VoiceThread that has been used in many classrooms but also is useful for conducting virtual focus group research. I explain how this tool can be used to collect qualitative participant…

Assessing the quality of education is a vital stipulation for all graduate programs that aim to secure and bolster their current rank among similar programs. Program evaluation is usually carried out by parties not directly related to a program. In other words, outsiders evaluate programs. Insiders who have first-hand experiences and impressions…

Program evaluation is important for assessing the implementation and outcomes of local, state, and federal programs. The Program Evaluation Toolkit provides tools and resources to support individuals responsible for evaluating and monitoring local, state, or federal programs. The toolkit comprises eight modules that cover critical steps in program…

Even under ideal conditions, teaching is tough work. Facing unrelenting pressure from administrators and parents and caught in a race against time to improve student outcomes, educators can easily become discouraged (or worse, burn out completely) without a robust coaching system in place to support them. For more than 20 years, perfecting such a…

This article examines the concept of credible evidence in Extension evaluations with specific attention to the measures and measurement strategies used to collect and create data. Credibility depends on multiple factors, including data quality and methodological rigor, characteristics of the stakeholder audience, stakeholder beliefs about the…

Community-engaged scholars, practitioners, and community partners often find the language of community engagement challenging. Words like "participate," "collaborate," "partner," or "engage" fail to convey who in a community-university partnership has voice and authority in decision-making and responsibility…

This guide describes key steps for developing a well-thought-out plan for evaluating a State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP). The guide provides considerations for how to incorporate each step into an evaluation plan, as well as a series of worksheets that correspond to each step and can be used to facilitate the planning process. The guide,…

Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is gaining ground in evaluation circles, but the number of applications is still limited. In this article, we consider the challenges that can emerge during a QCA evaluation by drawing on our experience of conducting one in the field of development cooperation. For each stage of the evaluation process, we…

This article provides insight into how an adequate approach to selecting methods can establish credible and actionable evidence. The authors offer strategies to effectively support Extension professionals, including program developers and evaluators, in being more deliberate when selecting appropriate qualitative and quantitative methods. In…