Public libraries have embraced the popularity of maker education and makerspaces by integrating maker education in their program offerings, and by developing makerspaces that enable patrons to tinker and create products. But less attention has been paid to supporting librarians and maker educators in assessing the impact of these spaces. To expand…

This research brief provides community college educators who are facilitating program review with tips, suggestions, and resources to ensure a high-quality review that advances equitable student outcomes.

Makerspaces, especially in their diverse proliferating forms, support a broad variety of learning outcomes. There is rich work in attempting to understand and describe these learning goals. Yet, there is a lack of support for practitioners and educators to assess the learning in events and programming at makerspaces (and similar environments)…

The aim of this article is to provide a model for assessing service-learning projects mediated by a stakeholder approach to managing such educational pursuits. The method used for substantiating this proposal consists of matching the process of stakeholder analysis, customised for experiential learning, with the project scope and monitoring…

Principles focused evaluation (PFE) can complement existing formative and outcome evaluation plans by identifying Effectiveness Principles (EPs), an operationalization of values and standards that guide practitioners during program implementation. To date, however, few examples of PFE are available in the literature. This description of the…

Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (ECCS) grants help states and communities improve early childhood systems to support child development, equitable access to quality services and supports, and family well-being. Truly interdisciplinary, ECCS promotes cross-sector systems change initiatives that focus on integrating health care, mental health,…

Systemic racism is pervasive in US society and disproportionately limits opportunities for education, work, and health for historically marginalized and minoritized racial and ethnic groups, making it an urgent issue of social justice. Because systemic racism is a social determinant of health prevalent across multiple social and institutional…

As is the case with many Centres for Teaching and Learning, prior to the global health crisis in 2020 our Centre primarily obtained feedback to inform its programming based on participation and satisfaction. As a result of the crisis, we could not rely on previous sources of information and needed to implement new strategies for evidencing the…

This study investigated the efficacy of the Beyond Rubrics Toolkit (BRT) as an embedded assessment instrument within makerspaces. Conducted as a pilot study at two Boys & Girls Club sites during afterschool programming, the research aimed to address the following research questions: (1) What skills are Youth Development Professionals teaching…

Funders of social interventions that address complex child and family welfare concerns for highly vulnerable populations are increasingly seeking cost-effective and rapid mixed method evaluations of their services. This paper describes a mind mapping approach that was used to collect valid and reliable qualitative data from large numbers of…

The purpose of this research study is to explore how current higher education institutions use outcomes-based assessment in student affairs departments to measure their impact in decreasing inequity among students. Historically, assessment has always been an integral part of higher education. Since the 1970's researchers and higher education…

Background: Despite extensive literature on school-based health center (SBHC) characteristics and outcomes, their quality of care has not been examined nationally. Standardized quality metrics can inform health care delivery and improvement. Methods: SBHC national performance measures (NPMs) were developed by reviewing measures from national child…

In 2021, the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) made a monumental move to require postsecondary institutions to evaluate and document their actions to ensure fairness in admissions, an inclusive learning environment, and equitable student outcomes. Around the same time, a team comprising educational measurement experts, diversity…

The concept of power is a complex and often intangible aspect of the evaluation process that is frequently a focal topic among the conceptual evaluation literature concerning collaborative or culturally responsive evaluation (CRE) contexts. Unfortunately, there remains a significant theory to practice gap as power is often rarely addressed or…

As community-campus engagement (CCE) continues to gain momentum, impact has increasingly been evaluated through qualitative measurements rooted in community-based perspectives. However, for CCE to have meaningful impact, it must challenge dominant power structures and work to create equitable relationships. This article explores efforts to better…