Taking advantage of legislation permitting modified school calendars, the four-day work week has been implemented by 23 small, rural Colorado school districts representing 5,200 children. Thirteen districts implemented the four-day program in the 1980-81 school year. Ten additional districts applied as first year pilot programs in the 1981-82…

Pre-Retirement Work Options is a demonstration project designed to develop and test alternative employment patterns for older workers in the Wisconsin Civil Service System. The program ws evaluated to determine the interest of older state workers in reducing their work hours prior to retirement as well as the impact of that reduction for those who…

Parents, teachers and administrators examined the Basic Skills Program in the Newark School District. The study was designed: (1) to determine the relative satisfaction with components of the reading and math aligned curricula and instructional time, (2) to determine the relationship between satisfaction with these variables and achievement, and…

A method for translating the achievement gains in Normal Curve Equivalents (NCE) to a more conceptually understandable index of academic growth is described. This method calculates "Expected Growth (EG)" and expresses the relationship of observed achievement gains. The method is shown to be easily applied and well suited to local…

Based on the experiences of the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) library in employing dial access to the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) Acquisition Subsystem (ACQS), this paper presents an overview of dial access systems as an alternative to the use of OCLC dedicated terminals. Dial access into online systems is briefly described,…

Background information is provided on child development programs and services in California community colleges. First, the report outlines the current status of child development centers and the three kinds of centers currently operated (i.e., lab schools, child care programs, and combination programs); the number and types of centers in…

The development of a Planning, Management, and Evaluation (PME) system at Voorhees College, is described. The project at the small, liberal arts college was supported by an Advanced Institutional Development Program (AIDP) grant. Primary objectives were to decrease the responsibility of the college's chief officer and to upgrade the academic…

This text is designed to accompany workshop instruction in student assessment technique for the purpose of evaluating bilingual programs. It is addressed to those involved with bilingual programs generally, educators directly involved in planning and implementation, and research and evaluation specialists. The contextual variables that affect the…

Based on the alternatives approach to drug abuse prevention, two service opportunity courses were offered to 8th and 9th grade students. Students in Cross-Age Tutoring were taught tutoring and communication skills and spent one period, 4 days per week tutoring elementary students. Students in School Store (a service opportunity developed for this…

The Evaluation Training Consortium provides evaluation training and instructional materials, and disseminates evaluation resources to preservice and inservice programs in special and regular education. This publication is a reference to evaluation instruments currently in use by personnel preparation programs. The instruments are described and…

Planning, quality, and efficiency in universities are addressed in the proceedings of the 1984 forum of the European Association for Institutional Research. In addition to quality and efficiency in higher education, the 12 papers and 22 abstracts cover: evaluation of research and programs, the application of statistical techniques, strategic…

An evaluation was conducted of the South Australian College of Advanced Education's Associate Degree in Training and Development, a two-year, individually negotiated program for people who work, or aspire to work, in the training and development field in industrial, commercial, or service organizations. A questionnaire was mailed to all 268 past…

This report investigated the determinants of college students' overall evaluations of their academic programs (major field of study). The manner in which students weight the various domains of satisfaction and dissatisfaction in determining their level of overall program satisfaction was examined. The gender differences and field differences in…

An analytic procedure, efficiency analysis, is proposed for improving the utility of quantitative program evaluation for decision making. The three features of the procedure are explained: (1) for statistical control, it adopts and extends the regression-discontinuity design; (2) for statistical inferences, it de-emphasizes hypothesis testing in…

Alternative educational programs can meet the needs of students for whom traditional educational methods are inadequate at less than it would cost to modify the standard educational programs to accommodate all student types. Although such programs have grown more visible in the United States in recent years, alternatives have been available since…