This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) Lessons Learned: Graduate Student Assessment (Michael Cherry and Lesley Page); (2) Assessing the Assessor: A Response to Fulcher and Bashkov's "Do We Practice What We Preach? The Accountability of an Assessment Office" (Christine Robinson, John G. M.…

Program evaluation is recognized as an essential skill set for practitioners in service-related fields, such as education, nonprofit management, social work, and public health. Recently, the need for a public workforce trained in evaluation has increased and is driven primarily by our nation's emphasis on accountability during a time when…

Integrating infant mental health services into early education programs leads to better child outcomes and stronger parent-child relationships--the big question is how to do it appropriately and effectively. Clear answers are in this accessible textbook, created to prepare early childhood professionals and programs to weave best practices in…

Due to the declining state of the current economy, a greater demand is being placed on student affairs professionals to provide evidence of the success of their programs, their impact on student learning and development and overall contributions to the undergraduate learning experience. It is a growing imperative that student affairs professionals…

The preliminary experiences of a process evaluator contracted to evaluate a three year program to develop Alaskan Native leadership are presented. With hindsight, some characteristics of this particular project having implications for a process evaluator are noted and some general comments on process evaluation, based on the author's experiences,…

State child welfare systems need to invest significant resources developing training programs that build knowledge and skill levels of the child welfare workforce. Often these training programs have produced only limited results, perhaps because the training is not linked directly to the knowledge and skills necessary to perform complex human…

This paper describes the methods engaged in by an internal evaluation unit within a large school district to transition program staff from participating in a formal program evaluation to continuing the responsibility of program monitoring once an evaluation ends. Formal multiyear program evaluations can provide program managers and staff with…

This study evaluated a program that was designed to empower staff members form nonprofit organizations to design evaluations that help further their organizational mission, addressing the needs of their clients more effectively and efficiently. In 2001-200, the program was offered in five bimonthly, 2-day sessions. Twenty participants from 10…

American national standards for the evaluation of educational programs were developed by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation in 1994. This paper describes the Joint Committee's standard setting process. The Joint Committee is a coalition of professional organizations concerned with the quality of evaluations in education.…

A central question to evaluative research at all levels is, Who should do it? In evaluating drug abuse programs three groups might be involved: treatment personnel, administrative or research personnel, and outside research professionals. This paper presents some advantages and disadvantages to the involvement of each of these groups within the…

The role of the evaluator in a Research & Development (R & D) setting, particularly as seen in relationship to that of the product developer, is often viewed as adversal, rather than complemental. A case study approach has been employed in an attempt to define how the role as seen in the latter sense can best be implemented. Both failures and…

The Portland public school system is decentralized and has three administrative areas, each headed by a superintendent. Each area is provided with an evaluation administrator, and a central evaluation administrator, and a central evaluation department is also maintained. Area evaluation is regarded as an essential function which each…

The purpose is to codify some program evaluation principles and provide a framework for program evaluation practices. Specifically: (1) common evaluation purposes are listed along with the general methods of investigation most apt for each purpose; (2) types of sources of evidence are listed and are associated with general methods of…

The overall effectiveness of the educational experiences provided at three Middle Tennessee ABE workshops was determined. Two instruments were used to collect data from approximately 300 adult basic education personnel from all counties in Middle Tennessee; these instruments were a questionnaire and an evaluation scale. The participants' responses…

To evaluate a specific program means to compare it against a standard that specifies what the program should be like at a specific time. Standards may be constructed in three ways: surface standards force the definition into a model shaped by scientific procedure; deep standards include information on the inputs, processes, and outputs for each…