Explores the effects evidence-based practice and the guideline movement will have on evaluation in the future and discusses the impact on evaluation of three aspects of the current information revolution: (1) e-government; (2) new approaches to data access; and (3) real-time evaluation. Also considers the sources of evaluation innovation and the…

The reports highlighted in this issue offer an excellent view of the success, value, and contributions of the National Household Education Surveys (NHES) Program. Also discusses the federal statistical system and the role that NHES and other national household surveys play in providing the United States with information needed for policy…

Accounting faculty (n=180) rated items for effectiveness in assessing research, teaching, and service. They perceived a strong role for department chairs in all three areas. Their ratings of their institutions assessment programs were not high. (SK)

To determine if students engaged in rating faculty members used different cognitive sets as a function of the explicit purpose for which ratings were obtained. A field experiment was conducted involving 141 graduate students. Results indicate that the purpose of assessment fails to influence the pattern of faculty ratings provided by students.…

The field of augmentative and alternative communication's (AAC) missing link is the discrepancy between what the research community identifies as needs and what the clinical community, including the AAC user, believes to be the AAC user's needs. An unrealistic picture of the AAC user occurs, developing a top-down effect of limited outcomes,…

"The Program Evaluation Standards," established by 16 professional associations, identify evaluation principles that should result in improved program evaluations that address utility, propriety, feasibility, and accuracy. This digest summarizes these standards. Guidelines and illustrative cases to assist in meeting these standards are…

Papers in this collection explore alternative and nontraditional approaches to evaluation. They provide options, speculations, and propositions that affect each thinker's ideas on how to trace the impact of National Science Foundation-supported programs. Organized around a central theme of footprints as evidence of a program's impact, the papers…

Over the past 25 years, there has been a gradual recognition that counseling children and adolescents is much different than counseling adults. Because of this difference, numerous books, games, and articles have focused on what assessment and intervention strategies work with the child and adolescent population. However, many of these…

This paper proposes a model to establish which criteria are considered by stakeholders as valid for evaluating a program. The model is developed with the aim of increasing the credibility and use of evaluations. Stakeholders are involved in the identification of potential evaluation criteria, and ratings of validity and priority are used as the…

This book offers a comprehensive guide to evaluation as applied to management development. Part I (Chapters 1-2) discusses the following: what management is; the role of training, development, and education of managers; the purposes of evaluation (proving, improving, learning, controlling); and approaches to evaluation. Part II (Chapters 3-6)…

This book explores the key issues of learner assessment in terms of who it is for, what modes of assessment exist, what makes for sound assessment, why assessment is done, what agencies are promoting innovative methods of assessment, and the catalysts for change. Practical suggestions on how to assess more effectively are provided, including…

This study attempted to identify efforts to evaluate programs for gifted and talented students in 122 Texas school districts and to compare these practices with those recommended in the literature and with Texas Education Association guidelines. Areas examined included informal and formal assessment of student and teacher identification practices,…

Since educational criticism aims to reeducate teachers' perception in order to improve or illuminate educational practices, the audience's role is particularly important. In many ways, the intended audience determines the evidence presented. The evaluator must write the criticism in language which is meaningful to the audience (for example…

The ongoing activities of program evaluation in the College of Education at Michigan State University are described in terms of three major phases of the evaluation: data collection; data analysis and reporting; and internal program reviews. Descriptions are included of the Graduate and Undergraduate Education Policy Committees, Office of Program…

In this case study, the ways in which evaluation, the decision maker, and the change process influenced the use or non-use of federally mandated evaluations of vocational and technical programs were studied for Maryland since 1979. A Discrepancy Analysis was used to determine whether the intended benefits from evaluation implementation and…