Discusses Donald Kirkpatrick's framework for evaluation that has been used as a basic model for the identification and targeting of training-specific interventions in business, government, military, and industry. Identifies tools and concepts for being responsive to new organizational realities of value-added requirements. (Author/LRW)

Discusses the effects of full-day kindergarten as producing academically stronger students who are better able to compete with the "norm." (SLD)

Cites 64 journal articles, papers, book chapters, and monographs on the topic of research for measuring and evaluating public relations effectiveness published between 1963 and 1997. (PA)

Discusses the limited applicability of traditional evaluation methods for elementary and secondary school teachers engaged in the field of fine and performing arts. Explores the use of traditional evaluation in the context of music education and addresses the future need for more reliable approaches to music teacher evaluation. (SLD)

Considers how ideas from document clustering can be used to improve retrieval accuracy of ranked lists in interactive systems and how to evaluate system effectiveness. Describes a TREC (Text Retrieval Conference) study that constructed and evaluated systems that present the user with ranked lists and a visualization of inter-document similarities.…

Lists the three presentation titles that were part of this technical session on metadata evaluation, including "An Update on the Dublin Core" (Stuart Weibel; "Metadata Development Update" (Kathleen Burnett and Jeong-Mee Lee); and "Metadata Standards for Discovery and Retrieval of Learning Objects" (Stuart Sutton).…

Discusses techniques used to ensure consistent scoring of written student responses in such subjects as reading, mathematics, writing, science, geography, U.S. history, and civics. Describes selecting scorers and image scoring and monitoring. (SLD)

Discusses nonpartisan evaluation, evaluation that is regarded by partisans of all persuasions as balanced, fair, and faithful so that debate can center on the evaluation findings and not on the methodology. Examines strategies that have been used to achieve nonpartisan evaluation. (SLD)

Discusses lessons to be learned from evaluation and best practices in evaluation and some ways to bring increased rigor to evaluators' use of those terms. Suggests that "best" practices is a term to avoid, with "better" or "effective" being more realistic, and calls for more specificity when discussing lessons to be…

Uses bibliometric analysis to examine the role of mediators and moderators in the evaluation of programs for children. Suggests that the use of mediators and moderators is sporadic and vague at best, and outlines an agenda for improved program evaluation. (SLD)

Proposes group mean centering as a solution to the problem of pooling data from multiple sites. Uses California's Work Pays Demonstration Project to illustrate three analysis strategies for data from multiple sites. Discusses considerations in choosing the centering strategy. (SLD)

A reconsideration of the methods used to access the welfare caseload movements during the 1990s is done. A model is developed in which the welfare caseload is the net outcome of past flows onto and off of the caseloads and it is shown that such a stock-flow model could explain some of the anomalous findings of the earlier studies.

In a post hoc analysis, we investigate differences in event-related potentials of two studies (Drenhaus et al., 2004, to appear; Saddy et al., 2004) by using the symbolic resonance analysis (Beim Graben & Kurths, 2003). The studies under discussion, examined the failure to license a negative polarity item (NPI) in German: Saddy et al. (2004a)…

Each year, Austin Independent School District Department of Research and Evaluation (DRE) staff develop a plan of work to describe the scope of work for the coming year. The plans that make up this document identify programs to be evaluated and services to be provided by DRE staff and provide the blueprints for evaluation that staff will follow…

Over the last three decades, higher education institutions have found themselves using vernacular that was once chiefly found in business disciplines, such as value-added and competitive advantage. With the rising costs of tuition, newer-generation students are seeing themselves more and more as customers and universities are beginning to adopt…