As institutions implement more comprehensive hazing prevention efforts, assessment is a necessary strategy for ensuring that programs and services for students are achieving their intended outcomes, especially as hazing behaviors change and evolve. Using a multi-stage student learning and development outcomes cycle, this article outlines steps to…

This article discusses concepts related to character strengths and positive youth development and how these ideas can be applied to improve outcomes among gifted young people. A theory with roots in public health, The Theory of Triadic Influence (TTI), is discussed with examples applied to gifted populations. Practitioners and researchers from…

Classification evaluation metrics are often used to evaluate adaptive tutoring systems-- programs that teach and adapt to humans. Unfortunately, it is not clear how intuitive these metrics are for practitioners with little machine learning background. Moreover, our experiments suggest that existing convention for evaluating tutoring systems may…

Classroom physical activity (PA) has been linked to a multitude of health and academic benefits. However, due to barriers such as lack of time and resources many teachers are not implementing classroom PA to the degree they would like to. One innovative solution is to integrate classroom PA into academic concepts. Based on self-determination…

Educational leaders have been held increasingly accountable for demonstrating significant gains in student achievement in the wake of education reform policies such as No Child Left Behind. This achievement is often defined as positive gains in attendance and test scores as discipline referrals and suspension numbers decrease. Socioeconomic and…

This article provides an historical look at how programs and practices for students with emotional or behavior disorders (E/BD) have been evaluated since 1964, leading to a codified, although not universally recognized, set of recommendations for evaluating best practices for students with E/BD set out by The Peacock Hill Working Group (1991). The…

The objective of many environmental education programs is to promote pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors in students. However, evaluation of these programs has focused on asking participants what they think (attitudes) and what they do (behaviors) regarding the environment problems through self-report questionnaires and interviews. These…

This session will describe the social validity, usability and intent to use of an interactive, state-of-the-art, professional development program based on the Response to Intervention (RtI) approach and its core components (e.g., problem-solving strategy; three tiers of intervention service delivery with universal, selected and intensive…

The problem of bullying has gained attention in recent years. Schools are investing significant resources into antibullying programs, despite scant evidence of program effectiveness. Three hundred ninety-five schools responded to a province-wide survey, whose purpose was (a) to describe the evaluation activities of schools relative to their…

The 4Rs Program (Reading, Writing, Respect and Resolution) is a "dual focus" whole school universal intervention designed to promote literacy development and social-emotional learning, that is currently being rigorously evaluated using a school-randomized trial of 18 elementary schools (9 intervention, 9 control) in New York City. The…

Although competency-based graduation programs possess an intuitive appeal because of their clearly specified outcomes, external evaluation provision, and quality control mechanisms, they do pose a number of student evaluation problems which have rarely been encountered in American education. This discussion is concerned with such problems. (Author)

Systematic observations of classroom behavior of both teachers and pupils are effective measures of process in education. Until a few years ago, the classroom process--what actually does and does not happen as a result of instituting a new program--went unmeasured for want of tools and techniques to do that job. In this article, examples of…

The authors' experiences in using three different approaches to the study and documentation of processes used in the Experience-Based Career Education model are reported. The approaches used were: ethnography, systematic observation of student behavior in natural settings, and in-depth student interviews. (Author/BP)

Assessed the reliability and validity of an instrument designed to assess the extent of alcohol and drug use. Factors in a school or community contributing to use of alcohol and drugs are identified. Uses of the results for school and community planning are included. (Author/JAC)