Purpose: Growing emphasis on program and practice evaluation in social work education coalesces with a growing interest in evaluation capacity building (ECB) within the interdisciplinary field of evaluation. However, the literature on ECB, while recognizing the importance of imparting knowledge and skills to individuals, largely ignores the…

Today the quality of teachers is held to be increasingly important yet there continue to be doubts about whether teacher education programs graduate teachers ready to meet the challenges of their initial years of teaching. In some jurisdictions, other agencies (Ministries of Education, school districts, and private providers) are supplementing the…

Results from the first study of the three-level School-Wide Positive Behavior Support model in Europe (SWPBS, called N-PALS) are presented. Using a strengthened nonrandomized design, data was collected from more than 1,200 teachers and 7,640 students at four measure points over four school years in 28 Norwegian intervention schools and 20…

Georgia has been at the forefront of the pre-kindergarten movement since implementing its pre-k program in 1992 and creating the nation's first state-funded universal pre-k program in 1995. Georgia's Pre-K, administered by "Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning" (DECAL), aims to provide high-quality…

The primary purpose of the accompanying final study was to evaluate the impact of two professional development models on teacher-child interactions in Georgia's Pre-K classrooms. Teachers were randomly selected to participate and were randomly assigned to one of the professional development conditions or to a control group. Because of this…

Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE for Teachers) is a mindfulness-based professional development program designed to reduce stress and improve teachers' performance and classroom learning environments. A randomized controlled trial examined program efficacy and acceptability among a sample of 50 teachers randomly assigned to…

The study focused on the effects of basic counseling skills program, such as listening, understanding, respecting, and empathizing, to elementary school teachers in Qatar. Through a three-hour intervention program, the authors used a self-reported questionnaire, interview questions and classroom observations to examine changes in how preschool…

The Class Activities Questionnaire, designed to measure both cognitive and affective emphases in the classroom via student perceptions, is developed and used to evaluate the Illinois Gifted Program. (DG)

Reviews of past research on psychosocial learning environments show that relatively few studies have involved the use of environment dimensions either as criterion variables in the evaluation computer education programs or with adult learners (in contrast to elementary and secondary school students). This study is distinctive in that it used a…

In order to evaluate the Illinois program for the gifted, a study was conducted in which the Class Activities Questionnaire (CAQ) was administered to 3,138 students in Reimbursement Gifted Classes, Demonstration Gifted Classes and Average (Non Gifted) Classes (grades 6 through 12). The CAQ, which assesses both the cognitive domain (levels of…

This study examined classroom life of children with behavioral/emotional disorders in self-contained classrooms. Site visits were made to 26 programs, and 200 parents responded to questionnaires. Despite visible mainstreaming efforts, results indicated gaps in quality of classroom life, amount of attention on students' mental health needs, and…

A process is outlined for developing an evaluation form that meets the following criteria: is relevant at local, state, and federal levels; short; objective; usable; statistically manageable; analytic; and fiscal. With standards in mind, the next step is to specify the kinds of information needed to meet state and federal requirements. Once the…

This manual explains how to administer the instrument, Guidance Program Assessment--Elementary School, and suggests ways to interpret the data obtained. Four aspects of a comprehensive guidance program are examined through the use of this assessment instrument: advice areas, school helping processes, classroom environment, and group topics…

This investigation was designed to provide the data to be used in a preliminary evaluative description of New York City's expanded prekindergarten and kindergarten programs funded under Title I. Data were collected from 20 randomly selected kindergarten classes in ten schools and ten prekindergarten classes in six schools through the use of…

This final report is an evaluation of Project Inspire, a program designed to create within the school setting a positive framework and atmosphere for learning through efforts directed toward students and teachers. Conducted at the Francis Junior High School in North-West Washington, D.C., Project Inspire aimed to improve academic achievement,…