The purpose of this case study was to provide the Portland Public Schools' Research and Evaluation Department with information to guide the development of improved data collection, reporting, and information delivery systems in order to target these systems to more effectively meet the decision-making needs of teachers, principals, parents and…

Designed to determine to what extent the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) products and services are utilized by certified school personnel, this study found that, on the average, 25.1% of the teachers, librarians, counselors, and administrators in three educational service regions in west central Illinois have used Resources in…

Directed to the heads of executive departments and establishments, this circular establishes policy for the management of federal information resources. Procedural and analytic guidelines for implemented aspects of these policies are included as appendices. The policies apply to the information activities of all agencies of the executive branch of…

The development of the communication component of a program promoting breast feeding to a variety of audiences through a variety of media is the focus of this paper. The introduction discusses groups, in addition to pregnant and lactating mothers, who should be involved and receive information. The paper then (1) identifies audiences--including…

Prepared for a meeting of the Northwest Regional Exchange (NWRx) Advisory Board and its staff and consultants, this document first reviews nine reports' findings on nine hypotheses concerning the institutionalization of educational change or innovation, especially as institutionalization relates to the dissemination functions of state…

Addressed to professionals involved in program evaluation, this working paper covers various aspects of evaluation planning, including the following: planning as a sociotechnical process, steps in evaluation planning, program planning and implementation versus evaluation planning and implementation, the literacy system and its subsystems, and some…

Experiences and events are presented on determining a successful way of conducting an education needs assessment on the Jicarilla Apache reservation in Dulce, New Mexico, using the following process: (1) identifying needs to devise questions on expressed concerns; (2) analyzing data; and (3) developing a program to correct the concern. The…

The content of the Public-Use Data Tapes of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is summarized and descriptions of recent research using the database are provided. Since 1969, NAEP has surveyed 9-, 13-, and 17-year-old students and occasionally young adults in assessments of achievement in art, career and occupational…

This investigation employed an in-basket simulation to assess the effect of provisional analysis on the use of evaluation data by program administrators in making program decisions. Sixty-five volunteers from graduate education courses and 52 volunteers from undergraduate educational psychology classes at Western Kentucky University were randomly…

One of the original premises of the Documentation and Technical Assistance Project (DTA) was that the ideal school organization manifests self renewal and adaptability. This conception of organization has been sharpened through the years by the Oakland, California, branch of the DTA. In this paper, the aspects of self renewal and adaptability…

This paper discusses evaluation of human service programs. Evaluation can be useful because: (1) evaluative data can be relevant to the basic goal of a demonstration to field test some strategy or technique; (2) process evaluation can help generate enthusiasm for self-improvement among staff; (3) evaluation can help build a communication network…

The impact of professional jargon and data-based statements in evaluation reports on audience responses to an evaluation report and an evaluator's recommendations was examined. Subjects read one of four evaluation reports about testing and grading procedures in a school program. The reports varied in the amount of jargon and data used to justify…

California state officials vary in their perceptions of the functions and uses of state Department of Education evaluations, according to state legislators, legislative staff members, department administrators, and outside evaluators whose opinions were gathered through interviews and at a 1981 symposium. Highlighted here are the legislators'…

Teacher educators are in a state of near paralysis concerning their program evaluations. This paralysis comes from adopting wholesale a dysfunctional evaluative point of view from the dominant educational research establishment. There is a history of overestimating the current relevance of experimental behavioral science models for the gathering…

Focusing on the effects that research on the Taiwan family planning program has had on social change, both in the intergration of research findings into national action programs and in the dissemination of these ideas to other Asian countries, this report discusses five individual case studies and presents a summary and analysis of the research…