During the last decade, policy and public attention have focused increasingly on the out-of-school hours, and programs to fill this time have proliferated for children and youth. These programs serve varying purposes, including providing child care and a safe haven, improving academic performance, enhancing general youth development, allowing…

The author considers whether current evaluation practice is of value to the Cooperative Extension System. Evaluation use and influence in Extension are characterized through literature review and examination of case examples informed by correspondence with study authors. The more than 675 evaluations examined consistently yielded specific and…

Soon after the author began her first year as a Teach for America (TFA) corps member, she realized how underprepared she felt teaching first grade. Although she grew as an educator over time and still committed to working in education, it was an uphill battle. And, like most other TFA corps members, she left teaching within the first three years.…

Current literature on the effectiveness of structured mentoring or induction programs for new counselors is lacking. Concurrently, new school counselors often experience difficulty in assuming the professional responsibilities associated with their role during the initial year of practice. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions…

Much controversy exists regarding the effectiveness of residential treatment. Recently, emerging research has demonstrated that community-based residential treatment has more positive long-term outcomes for youth. This article describes a community-based program that was implemented at a residential treatment agency serving youth. Targeted…

Young and healthy undergraduates in health education were not predisposed to learn the complex sprawl of topics in a required course on U.S. Health Care. An online simulation of health care reform was used to encourage student learning about health care and participating in health care reform. Students applied their understanding of high costs,…

When the University of North Dakota began working to improve general education, two concerns were recognized. The first issue, which faculty and administrators across campus found immediately engaging, was how to change general education so that it would be a better program, more likely to yield clear student learning benefits. A second concern,…

The purpose of this paper is to inform the community about teacher appraisal methods in the School District of Philadelphia, outline the difficulties of the current system, and suggest approaches that would strengthen the teacher appraisal process. The authors gathered their information over three months in mid-2009 from multiple sources:…

In the past three years, Board of Governors' (BOG) staff, working in cooperation with university representatives, have continued to improve the data collection and reporting capabilities for the State University System. Simultaneously, Board staff have worked to lessen the reporting burden on the universities by reducing the number of data…

Environmental interpretation is a key tool for integrated management of tourism, with potential for greater use in managing visitor numbers, behavior and impacts, and enhancing experience. Evaluation is necessary to determine whether interpretation is achieving its goals. It is vital for park managers to know if their management is effective in…

The amount of online information has grown exponentially over the past few decades, and users become more and more dependent on ranking and recommendation systems to address their information seeking needs. The advance in information technologies has enabled users to provide feedback on the utilities of the underlying ranking and recommendation…

Improving teacher preparation for successful teaching in at-risk schools will help at-risk schools and districts by doing the following: (1) Create stability and growth by retaining teachers; (2) Address the equitable distribution of highly qualified teachers; (3) Break the cycle of outdated teaching methods and low expectations; and (4) Raise…

The Bright Futures Scholarship (BFS), Florida's lottery-funded, merit-based scholarship program, has been a source of both praise and criticism since its 1997 inception. Proponents of the scholarship assert the program has achieved the desired goals of making college more affordable for state residents and encouraging the brightest students to…

The provision of diversified research training is regarded as one of the most significant contributions made by the Australian Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) programme [Howard Partners 2003, Evaluation of the cooperative research centres programme, Department of Education, Science and Training, Canberra, ACT]. Yet, a systematic evaluation of…

Understanding how to assess and improve what happens within out-of-school-time (OST) programs is a critical challenge facing the field. This article explores key developments related to the issue of quality in the OST field during the past several years and then looks ahead at opportunities for future progress. From a practice perspective, one of…