The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evaluates research studies that look at the effectiveness of education programs, products, practices, and policies, which the WWC calls "interventions." Many studies of education interventions make claims about impacts on students' outcomes. Some studies have designs that enable readers to make causal…

User input is an important component to help guide designers in producing a more usable product. Evaluation of prototypes is one method of obtaining this input, but methods for evaluating assistive technology prototypes during design have not been adequately described or evaluated. This project aimed to compare different methods of evaluating…

This article describes how to design program assessment for mathematics departments, in two-year and four-year colleges across the Midwest, based on a set of components that was generated from a Delphi survey. An example is provided to illustrate how this was done at a small four-year college. There is an alignment between these components and a…

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to highlight the training factors that mostly affect trainees' perception of learning and training usefulness. Design/methodology/approach: A new research model is proposed exploring the relationships between a trainer's performance, training programme components, outcomes of the learning process and training…

The purpose of this monograph is to aid practitioners in gaining federal Joint Dissemination Review Panel (JDRP) approval of career education projects. It helps them understand the importance of designing and implementing a sound evaluation from the early stages of the program, alerts them to common errors or omissions that weaken or destroy…

Teacher training is discussed, focusing on the role of knowledge and performance in the training of skills, problems of design, and the effects of training methods. Research on the application and validity of training programs in the classroom and current knowledge of effective program components are reviewed. (TJH)

Educational reform is becoming synonymous with accountability. However, designing an effective accountability system poses serious challenges for states as is clear from the progress and pitfalls experienced by states such as Texas, Kentucky, and California. For example, many states tend to overload their new accountability programs, resulting in…

There is plentiful discussion about the importance of accountability, but much needs to be done to translate it into a manageable and credible system of ongoing feedback. In this book, evaluative inquiry is used in a way that balances attention between the investigation process and its purpose. The book is divided into three parts. Following an…

This paper presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of a distributed collaborative UML modelling environment, CoLeMo. CoLeMo is designed for students studying UML modelling. It can also be used as a platform for collaborative design of software. We conducted formative evaluations and a summative evaluation to improve the environment and…

This guide defines the objectives and procedures of the United States Department of Education's Joint Dissemination Review Panel (JDRP) and the National Diffusion Network (NDN). The authors discuss the JDRP's methods of identifying successful educational programs and informing other schools nationwide about them. The major questions asked about…

Educational programs and evaluations which were submitted to the Department of Education's Joint Dissemination Review Panel (JDRP), in order to be named validated programs, were studied to identify program characteristics associated with large versus small effect size. Effect size was calculated for 165 out of 232 submittals reviewed by JDRP from…

Scarborough (Ontario) School District Area 10 has had a "New Teacher Support Committee" since September 1991, the focus of which is the support of beginning teachers. During the fall of the 1991-92 school year, Area 10 elementary schools participated in a first year teacher orientation program designed to help teachers new to the…