Higher education insiders trumpet the use of results for improvement as the most important part of the assessment cycle. Yet, at the same time, we acknowledge the rarity of improvement, especially at a program level. What are some reasons the most important phase of assessment occurs so infrequently? To seek answers, we investigated the "Use…

For decades, discussions regarding assessment have been taking place in higher education, which has forced institutions to take a look at outcomes and indicators of student achievement. Although the literature indicates an acceptance that assessment is not going away, the process that takes place within higher education institutions has led to…

Minnesotans value education. Education is the largest financial investment in the state budget, and those investments place Minnesota students among the top performers in the nation. Still, substantial gaps in opportunity and performance persist. The three purposes of the needs assessment were to: (1) Describe infrastructure, capacity, and costs…

Effective teaching has long been an issue of national concern, but in recent years focus on the effectiveness of programs to produce high-quality teachers has sharpened. Long-standing achievement gaps persist despite large-scale legislative changes at the federal and state levels, and American students continue to show poorer performance on…

Evaluators of basic units in higher education should be explicit about the motives, object, organization, criteria, methods, dissemination, and impacts of evaluation efforts to avoid being counterproductive. (Author/MSE)

Good evaluation shares much with good teaching. What makes an evaluation useful can depend on qualities of teaching brought to the evaluator's role. (Available from: Jossey-Bass, Inc., 433 California St., San Francisco, CA 94104, single issue, $6.95.) (Author)

Discusses how evaluation can aid both in countering the current negative perception of the foreign language profession and in returning control of the future direction of foreign language study to the hands of professional educators. (EKN)

A new role for evaluators is proposed, which reconstructs the evaluator into an information specialist who is part of a project team engaged in self evaluation. The evaluator's role has traditionally been complicated by disagreements about what is expected from the evaluator; by differing perceptions about the evaluator's power to effect change;…

Sixteen vocational education evaluation problems which indicate the present situation in the states are discussed, and alternative solutions to them are suggested in this report. Each problem represents a situation that should be remedied or a need that must be met and was found to be common to a number of states attempting to develop or improve…

A number of organizational, personal and methodological characteristics have been identified through the literature which inhibit or can be used to facilitate the use of evaluation and testing information. Inhibitors of information usage include organizational characteristics such as loosely coupled and decentralized systems, personal…

Characteristics of evaluative studies used by California state legislators are discussed: specificity in addressing particular policy decisions; factors which contribute to or hinder the accomplishment of educational objectives; balanced studies with a range of indicators; and attention to local concerns, and to fiscal and legal issues. (MH)

This paper describes the use of a theory-based framework, the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM), in evaluating the implementation of three educational innovations in the Portland (Oregon) Public Schools during 1986-87: (1) Project READ, a districtwide alternative language arts program for grades 1-8; (2) Timeline, project management software…

A major statewide survey was conducted to establish comprehensive, baseline information regarding arts education in the public school districts of Arizona. This report documents the findings and serves as a standard against which to measure future changes as well as a guide or starting point for responsible planning in order to effect intelligent,…

Involving producing, analyzing, and using information, evaluation is the central discipline of the information age. Both traditional criteria for good evaluation and standards formulated in 1981 prescribe evaluations that are useful, practical, ethical, and accurate. The burning question in evaluation is the utilization of information for…

In the context of findings from the recent nationwide studies and reports on the status of education, this paper focuses on the program assessment, instructional planning, and resource allocation efforts of the Rochester (New York) School District. The first phase, the Rochester Assessment Project, began with informal meetings between the…