Building Educated Leaders for Life (BELL) is a national not-for-profit organization whose mission is to increase the educational achievements, self-esteem, and life opportunities of elementary school children living in low-income urban communities. BELL has been engaged in formal evaluation, internally and externally, for more than five years and…

This report presents findings from a rigorous evaluation of the Early Start to Emancipation Preparation (ESTEP)-Tutoring Program in Los Angeles. ESTEP-Tutoring provides up to 50 hours of remedial one-on-one tutoring in reading and math to foster youths ages 14 to 15 who are one to three years behind grade level in either reading or math. The…

Project RAISSE, which stands for Reading Assistance Initiative for Secondary School Educators, focuses on site-based content area study groups led by a content area teacher trained as a coach/literacy leader with some roles and responsibilities commensurate with a literacy coach. The goal of Project RAISSE is to enhance students' reading…

Any curriculum consists of several components: objectives, attitudes, time, students and teachers, needs analysis, classroom activities, materials, study skills, language skills, vocabulary, grammar and assessment. Before setting up a program or course of study, these components should be determined and described in detail. In fact, these elements…

Participation in after school programs is associated with increases in academic achievement and improved behavior in students at risk. Process evaluation data from participants and key stakeholders was used to gauge implementation, satisfaction, and program attendance of an after school arts program. Lack of scheduling flexibility resulted in low…

Introduction: This exploratory study examines Canadian physicians' participation in online social activities and learning discussions, perceptions of online social closeness, barriers and motivators to participation, and perceptions of the impact of course duration and face-to-face meetings on learning. Methods: Formative evaluations were…

This paper reports on empirical research into formative assessment conducted in a blended learning environment within a professional doctorate in education (EdD.) programme in an English university, focusing primarily on peer discussion forum activity. This was conceptualised within sociocultural learning theories, where learning entails processes…

In evaluating the success of teacher development programs, valid and scalable measures of teaching practice are needed. We have developed and validated the Science Lesson Plan Analysis Instrument (SLPAI) for quantitative evaluation of teacher-generated multiday lesson plans. This paper presents the SLPAI as a complement to surveys and classroom…

The purpose of the Year-Round Education (YRE) Evaluation Project is to provide formative evaluation information to Orange County (Florida) Public Schools decision-makers about the year-round education schedule piloted in three elementary schools. Employing YRE means reorganizing the traditional school calendar into shorter instructional sessions…

This paper proposes a humanistic approach that may not be evaluation as commonly regarded, but it does have a much greater chance to enact program improvement. It assumes that program developers and directors really want their activities to be effective and relevant. The role of the evaluator is that of facilitator, that of a linking pin to…

The paper describes a microcomputer disk, Data Based Program Modification (DBPM), which allows special and regular educators to monitor the progress of each student, thereby perceiving the effectiveness of the instructional program. The advantages of such a formative evaluation approach are considered. The development of the DBPM is outlined in…

The increasing automation of many occupations leads to jobs that involve understanding and monitoring the operation of complex computer systems. One case is PATRIOT, an air defense surface-to-air missile system deployed by the U.S. Army. Radar information is processed and presented to the operators in highly abstract form. The system identifies…

Evaluators who perform formative evaluations would be well served to apprise themselves of recent survey research in framing formative evaluations. Illustrative examples are used from research into such diverse areas of activity as: the development of identities attached to different forms of modern rock and roll; the rationales that juvenile…

This chapter discusses current methods of formative evaluation and suggests that these methods themselves need to be subjected to more critical research and evaluation in order to provide them with a more scientific base. Topics addressed include problems and methods associated with data gathering, evaluation designs, number of subjects available,…

The program review process described in this report was developed at Anchorage Community College (ACC) after 3 years of experimentation and adjustment. Following a brief overview of the factors that instigated the effort, the report sets forth the assumptions and definitions underpinning the review process. Next, a series of suggestions are…