A survey of 106 day care center directors found that accreditation helped the majority to better market their programs, improve program components, and improve staff morale. Nearly 95% reported that program reaccreditation would be sought. (MDM)

A good formative evaluator, who helps programs become as effective as possible, behaves remarkably like a good personal coach. Nine ways in which a formative evaluator can help a program manager are listed, and implications for practicing evaluators and the evaluation profession are detailed. (SLD)

Alternative teacher credentialing should be evaluated in terms of its effectiveness in improving the quality of education cost effectively, attracting high quality and more diverse teachers, and forging closer links between teacher education reform and elementary-secondary school improvement. (SK)

Describes and discusses a three-step process for creating a feasible evaluation system for a theater program: (1) writing a values statement; (2) creating an internal accountability plan; and (3) making an external accountability plan. (SR)

Senator Kassebaum introduces the Head Start Quality Improvement Act which aims at building on the success of Head Start by connecting an increased budget with measures designed to improve program quality. The five-pronged approach of the legislation also mandates increased program accountability through performance measures. (SLD)

Describes a development, research, and improvement framework for conducting comprehensive program assessment in physical-education teacher education (PETE). The framework includes questions that guide PETE faculty through program assessment to create customized plans. Data from observation instruments, qualitative techniques, and psychometric…

Community colleges across the country are experimenting with strategies to raise faculty and staff awareness of the need for change and to engage them in the redesign process. This article describes the major forces driving the need for transformation, the organizational stress that sometimes results, and successful strategies for bridging the old…

Describes the School Administration and Management Systems (SAMS) that was developed to support elementary and secondary schools in Hong Kong in administrative and managerial tasks. Reports results of a survey that investigated the impact of SAMS, evaluated its effectiveness, and identified possible areas of improvement to SAMS operation.…

Researchers from the University of Washington, Microsoft Research, Boeing, and Risoe National Laboratory in Denmark have embarked on a project to explore the manifestations of Collaborative Information Retrieval (CIR) in work settings and to propose technological innovations and organizational changes that can support, facilitate, and improve CIR.…

The following dimensions for effective reaction evaluations as a tool in training program evaluations are described: program objective(s)/content; program materials; delivery methods/technologies; instructor/facilitator; instructional activities; program time/length; training environment; planned action/transfer expectation;…

Discusses associations between levels of service point use, population information and library inputs, based on data from two London boroughs in respect of individual static service points. Outlines methods of deriving catchment area data using membership information or postcode data from a user survey. Describes a method for librarians seeking to…

Descriptive statistics were utilized to examine the relation between early childhood education and care quality indicators found in state child care regulations and the number of National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) accredited programs in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The data analysis provided the first…

Objective: To investigate an existing Trust-based osteoporosis service's preventative activity, determine any issues and problems and use this data to reorganise the service, as part of a National Health Service Executive/Regional Office-commissioned and funded study. Setting: A UK Hospital Trust's Osteoporosis Service. Design & Method: A…

In this paper, the authors describe their experience of establishing an action research/learning-based doctoral program in Singapore by an Australian university, which was designed to help managers get academic accreditation while solving workplace problems. The program was designed by four managers working in Singapore and their supervisors.…

Blended learning (BL) provides an efficient and effective instructional experience. However, adopting a BL approach poses some challenges to faculty; the most important obstacle found in this research is faculty's lack of knowledge regarding the use of technology in their teaching. This challenge prompted the research project focused on improving…