Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is a valuable tool in various chemical and biological fields for investigating the presence and quantity of proteins of interest in given samples. The high importance of the assay makes it widely used in biological research and hence a crucial skill to master for up-and-coming scientists. A major…

This chapter will value of including diverse voices of researchers. An innovative, cost-effective model for assessment will be described, capturing the process implemented at a university in its efforts to center social justice within assessment and evaluation research practices.

Research impact features heavily in debates about 'the measured university' and is now formally assessed by governments in the UK and Australia. Yet clear guidance on how impact can be measured in non-monetary ways is often lacking because of confused thinking and the context-specific nature of outcomes. To help resolve this, we first propose a…

This report asserts that tax credit scholarship programs, that distribute scholarships to students via Scholarship Tuition Organizations (STOs), have saved state treasuries between $1.7 and $3.4 billion dollars since 1998. The report argues that these programs are able to realize fiscal savings as a result of students leaving public schools and…

Teacher and principal surveys are among the most common data collection techniques employed in education research. Yet there is remarkably little research on survey methods in education, or about the most cost-effective way to raise response rates among teachers and principals. In an effort to explore various methods for increasing survey response…

Although a great deal of time, resources and effort goes into the education of potential or existing entrepreneurs, our knowledge of the effects of this education is still rather limited. It can be argued that an imbalance exists between the substantial amount of finance and manpower invested in entrepreneurship education programmes and the very…

Web-based surveys have become more prevalent in areas such as evaluation, research, and marketing research to name a few. The proliferation of these online surveys raises the question, how do response rates compare with traditional surveys and at what cost? This research explored response rates and costs for Web-based surveys, paper surveys, and…

Schools and school systems throughout the nation are increasingly experimenting with using various instructional technologies to improve productivity and decrease costs, but evidence on both the effectiveness and the costs of education technology is limited. A recent report published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute sets out to describe "the…

The education cost literature includes econometric studies attempting to determine economies of scale, or estimate an optimal school or district size. Not only do their results differ, but the studies use dissimilar data, techniques, and models. To derive value from these studies requires that the estimates be made comparable. One method to do…

This brief discussion considers some of the techniques, especially graphic techniques, that are part of the "tool kit" for sensitivity analysis, using sensitivity analysis in a hospital's cost-benefit decision as an example. Sensitivity analysis is helpful in exploring the deterministic agency in decision making. (SLD)

About 40 years since the first controlled study, screening and brief intervention (SBI) are being disseminated into practice. But many unanswered questions remain. Studies in this special issue address what we know and don't know about alcohol and drug SBI, cost-effectiveness, patient preferences, education for clinicians, quality performance…

In many evaluations, presenting probability distributions of cost-effectiveness results offers a convenient way to show the likelihood of various conclusions given the uncertainties in the inputs. The techniques presented in this paper should be useful for many programs characterized by controversy over perspectives, assumptions, and dollar…

This paper presents a mathematical methodology in treating the systems approach to the evaluation of instruction. The major aspects of the procedure and the use of sensitivity analysis as a check upon the logical validity of the system are discussed. Advantages of a systems analysis when compared to qualitative analysis are also presented.…

Focuses on ethical issues that can arise in the collection and analysis of data in evaluations. Addresses four issues: (1) the application of cost-benefit thinking to judgments about research ethics, (2) the quality of research design, (3) the need to explore the data, and (4) the censoring of data. (Author/SLD)