Reviews the conclusions drawn in articles in this special issue and comments on some of the major themes, including paradigm debates, context issues, the role of evaluators and evaluation, the performance measurement movement, and the impact of new technologies on evaluation. (SLD)

Discusses preservation education programs and describes a workshop follow-up program by SOLINET (Southeastern Library Network) designed to measure the effects of training, provide ongoing support, and develop a long-term mechanism for evaluating workshop effectiveness. Presents results obtained after collecting qualitative and quantitative data…

Presents conversion factors to be used to translate the quality of the respective contraception methods distributed to a single measure of protection for calculating couple-years of protection in family planning studies. Discusses the implications for the evaluation of family planning programs. (SLD)

Reports on the theory-driven evaluation of a drop-in center for youth that incorporates a literature search, concept mapping with staff, and focus groups with youth. Findings show strong agreement among the three data sources about critical program components. Discusses implications of a theory-driven approach. (Author/SLD)

Presents an algorithm for integrating evaluative concerns of cost effectiveness, equity, quality, and sustainability in program evaluation and offers suggestions for refining the system of measurement and analysis. (SLD)

Describes an evaluator's experiences constructing a World Wide Web site to collect evaluation data and discusses the technical and design challenges presented by data collection via the Web. Discusses eight lessons of Web-based data collection and outlines the advantages of the approach. (SLD)

Argues for maintaining a discovery capacity (both qualitative and quantitative) in evaluations of community-based health and human service programs. Discovery capacity is defined as a mechanism to detect new insights and developments in programs. Cites reasons this capacity is especially important in community-based programs. (SLD)

Explores the impact and consumer satisfaction associated with participation in a parent education program, Kids in Divorce and Separation (K.I.D.S.), that specifically focuses on divorce and parental conflict. Results indicate that participation in the program has positive effects on parents' self-reported knowledge and behavior with regard to…

Reflects on empowerment evaluation, the use of evaluation to foster improvement and self-determination. Empowerment evaluation uses quantitative and qualitative methods, and usually focuses on program evaluation. Discusses the growth in empowerment evaluation as a result of interest in participatory evaluation. (SLD)

Limiting data collection to a sample group is one way to increase effectiveness in dealing with data. The paper describes how to draw a sample group (random sampling, stratified random sampling, purposeful sampling, and convenient or opportunity sampling) and discusses how to determine the size of the sample group. (SM)

Discusses how a time-series approach was used in the evaluation of the impact of California Senate Bill 2669 on child maltreatment reports. Describes the factors that influenced decisions about evaluation methods and the selection of outcome and exogenous measures. Recommends actions that would facilitate the implementation of evaluations of this…

Presents an overview of the concepts and methods employed by outcome researchers evaluating intervention effectiveness in child welfare, and the problems associated with these methods that make their use by agencies impractical. Discusses concepts of statistical significance, effect size, and the meaningfulness of effects. Emphasizes the need for…

Describes experiences in developing a multi-program economic evaluation and costing study of Assertive Community Treatment (ACT), a widely studied community mental health treatment model. The project description shows how the worlds of research and service delivery can collaborate to come to symbiotic resolutions. (Author/SLD)

In Manatee County, Florida, not only did they build career tech programs into career academies, but they also developed an evaluation process to ensure these career academies were credible. A District Academic team created the "Documentation of Academy Assessment Criteria" with 12 core components and a rubric that helps evaluators…

There is growing recognition of the complexity of academic work and the need for university and college faculty members to develop scholarly approaches to teaching and learning. While structured programs of study have been initiated for faculty to address these issues in various higher education contexts, very little research has investigated the…