Government and public focus on accountability for program outcomes, combined with practical and ethical constraints on experimental designs, make nonexperimental studies of social programs an increasingly common approach to producing information on program performance. In this paper, we compare the effectiveness of alternative nonexperimental…

An important final step in the life cycles of programs and their evaluation involves assessing new programs' or innovations' sustainability. This review and synthesis of 19 empirical studies of the sustainability of American and Canadian health-related programs examines the extent of sustainability achieved and summarizes factors contributing to…

Describes the conceptual scheme for a 1-year evaluation course designed to each the competencies required to conduct evaluations that provide the sense-making for informed decision making. Draws on the authors' experience in developing such a course over 4 years. (SLD)

Describes the training in program evaluation received at Northwestern University and the ways in which that training and the program experience have influenced the career of an evaluator working for the federal government. (SLD)

Important findings are often a balance between the rigor of the experimental design and innovativeness of the experimental question. One broad topic area that has received a great deal of discussion, but little empirical study, is the evaluation of educational systems. Experimental designs that permit the analysis of practices used by state…

We rely a great deal on the schematic descriptions that represent experimental and quasi-experimental design arrangements, as well as the discussions of threats to validity associated with these, provided by Campbell and his associates: Stanley, Cook, and Shadish. Some of these designs include descriptions of treatments removed, removed and then…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop the understanding of the challenges and considerations of how new and innovative entrepreneurship education programmes may be inculcated into UK higher education institutions (HEIs). Design/methodology/approach: The paper employs an action research approach to provide insights into entrepreneurship…

Although academic libraries have a long tradition of program assessment, in the past the results have been more meaningful internally than externally. Recent changes in the conceptualization of libraries' role in higher education and advances in measurement tools will likely provide answers to different questions, particularly the relationship of…

The Higher Learning Commission (HLC), a commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA), accredits Wyoming's seven community colleges. Institutional accreditation is a voluntary process that serves the critical purposes of quality assurance and institutional and program improvement. Colleges that are accredited by the HLC…

This brief and accompanying Funder's Sustainability Assessment Tool is intended to help foundation leaders address the challenges of sustainability. The brief begins with a framework for thinking about sustainability, introduces an assessment tool funders can use in a variety of ways to support sustainability in their grantmaking, and concludes…

The purpose of this Guide is to advise researchers, policymakers, and others on when it is possible to conduct a high-quality randomized controlled trial in education at reduced cost. Well-designed randomized controlled trials are recognized as the gold standard for evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention (i.e., program or practice) in…

The Institute for Scholarship on Engineering Education (ISEE) team of the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education, designed and implemented a 120 minute interactive session called "Communities In Practice--What Are We Learning?" for the 2006 Frontiers in Education Conference in Indianapolis. Six story posters were provided by 8…

Many communities offer programs aimed at improving teen dating skills and knowledge about violence and sexual behavior. This research study evaluates one such program, operated by an interagency collaborative. Each of four participating community agencies provided one hour of curriculum during one week of health class. Lecture, group activities,…

This paper argues that the formulation of policy, at whatever level, to whatever scale or scope, is any different to the myriad of processes involved in strategic planning within and between organisations, and the attendant decision making processes that abound in such an environment (Hage, 1980; Hickson, 1987; Thompson, 1967; Weick, 1976). Those…

Reflective practice is an important vehicle for the apprenticeship of tacit and procedure-oriented knowledge. This article explores the development of reflective practice in the teaching of an innovative design course. Starting from a characterization of the "materials of a design situation" (problem-solution duality, methods and tools,…