Most program evaluation efforts concentrate on assessments of "program implementation" and "program outcomes." However, another area of programs that has not received sufficient attention in the literature is evaluating the plan of the program. Since the quality of the plan and planning process can influence program…

School counselors implement social emotional learning (SEL) programs to support students' holistic development and to prepare them for both academic and personal success. It is imperative that school counselors use evaluation research as they continue to refine their implementation and program selection efforts. This phenomenological qualitative…

From a utilization-focused evaluation perspective, the success of an evaluation is rooted in the extent to which the evaluation was used by stakeholders. This paper details the "Expectations to Change" (E2C) process, an interactive, workshop-based method designed to engage primary users with their evaluation findings as a means of…

Implementation refers to the process by which an intervention is put into practice. Research studies across multiple disciplines, including education, have consistently demonstrated that interventions are rarely implemented as designed and, crucially, that variability in implementation is related to variability in the achievement of expected…

The purpose of this study is to extend the work of Spybrook and Raudenbush (2009) and examine how the research designs and sample sizes changed from the planning phase to the implementation phase in the first wave of studies funded by IES. The authors examine the impact of the changes in terms of the changes in the precision of the study from the…

This paper examines measures used by studies associated with Preschool Curriculum Evaluation Research Initiative (PCER) funded by the Institute of Education Sciences. Analysis of 17 measures of fidelity used by 13 curriculum interventions highlights how research in preschools is and is not measuring fidelity of implementation. The following…

Purpose: The article explores the significance of "evaluation" in the delivery of multifunctional extension advisory programmes and argues the necessity of integrating evaluation into programme planning, to ensure that programme guidelines are adhered to and extension advisory programmes generate their desired impact. The article focuses…

A large body of literature documents the central importance of fidelity of program implementation in creating an internally valid research design and considering such fidelity in judgments of research quality. The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) provides web-based summary ratings of educational innovations and is the only rating group that is…

Although staff training in public child welfare agencies is thought to be a critical component of effective practice, little is known about the delivery and effectiveness of training interventions. Few evaluations are published in the literature and it is uncertain how much evaluation activity is being conducted and utilized. This study collected…

Environment and sustainable development show how policies are becoming ever more complex and ambiguous. This trend calls for new evaluation approaches. They need to be more clearly focused on specific, explicit concerns. They must be driven by a strategic concept of use to overcome the vulnerability to manipulation of many integrative, essentially…

The purposes of metaevaluation go beyond the traditional functions of accountability and enhancement. It helps guide strategic organizational change and legitimizes evaluation systems. Metaevaluation results can also be used to create checklists so that the persons responsible for any evaluation can revise, monitor, and control them by themselves.…

In order to assess how completely a Small Learning Community (SLC) and/or Career Academy is implemented in any given site, and to connect the degree of implementation with the amount of improvement in student performance, two kinds of information are needed. The first is information on the quality of implementation, which can be collected by…

This special series focused on treatment integrity in the child mental health and education field is timely. The articles do a laudable job of reviewing (a) the current status of treatment integrity research and measurement, (b) existing conceptual models of treatment integrity, and (c) the limitations of prior research. Overall, this thoughtful…

The aim of this study was to examine the underlying structure of the Evaluation Scale of Educational Programme Implementation (ESEPI). The ESEPI consists of six factors that play an important role in educational programme implementation, namely: training, educational material, administration, facilities, relationships and educational procedure.…

This article describes the planning of a multi-agency and multi-stakeholder evaluation of the implementation of supportive housing. The Ottawa Housing"Plus" Collaborative Communities project is a collaboration between university-based evaluators and members of a local network of supportive housing providers. The objectives of the…