Guidelines for evaluation of school programs in the State of Florida are presented. The purpose of evaluation is to modify the content and method of instruction, provide information to decision-makers and the public, provide feedback to participants, and determine criteria for program success. The optimal evaluation design for either innovative or…

The document is part of the final report on Project STEEL (Special Teacher Education and Evaluation Laboratory) intended to extend the utilization of technology in the training of preservice special education teachers. This volume focuses on the first of four project objectives, the development and implementation of a microcomputer-based…

This document reports an evaluation of the orientation program in Australia for hosted Year Program students. Qualitative and quantitative data were used in the evaluation. The techniques included on-site observation of the orientation and interviews with 141 participants and 23 staff members from 12 countries. Although no written goals were…

Case study research, as presented here, is a way to interrelate the theory and practice of education and to improve the contributions of comparative and international research studies. This paper argues that there are four levels of concern in comparative and international education: the development and transmission of ideas about education; the…

Observations of one mainstreamed child and one "ordinary child" at each of 12 day care centers were compared. Five of the 12 mainstreamed children were mentally retarded, and seven had a slight developmental retardation mainly due to deprivation. Observations of 10-minute duration, totaling 4 hours and dispersed across 7 days, focused on…

Perspectives concerning a field-based inquiry approach to medical education are offered. This approach requires that inquiry tactics more closely match educational and clinical processes. Assumptions about naturalistic and quasi-experimental educational research are considered that indicate a common field-based approach to inquiry. Parallel…

The nature of classroom activities, cognitive learning opportunities, and instruction in seventh and eighth grades within the academic subject areas was examined. The purpose was to describe and interpret classroom learning opportunities in terms compatible with the complexity of typical classroom events and teachers' understanding of those…

A study was conducted to describe the experiences of five preservice teachers who taught in a special practicum without cooperating teachers. Prior to the practicum, the student teachers were interviewed to ascertain their views on teaching reading and what they hoped to gain from the practicum to further prepare them to teach it. Each student was…

Miami University's (Ohio) two-course educational psychology sequence for prospective teachers has been redesigned to incorporate early field experiences. Concerns about the congruence of field tasks with course content, as well as about limiting situational constraints, were addressed by a committee on teacher preparation. Currently, each semester…

Program documentation is an important role for evaluation in both formative and summative modes. It should describe processes, materials, participants and social interactions which produce certain outcomes. Program evaluation should judge the effect of the program and depict effective practices, products and outcomes. To demonstrate program…

Teachers' perspectives on the student assessment process and on the role of testing in that process are presented. Primarily ethnographic in approach, this study includes investigations of teachers' ideas and thought processes as well as observation of actual classroom practice. Six elementary teachers participated in a three-stage process of…

Characteristics that seem to separate effective and ineffective teacher evaluation systems provide a framework for viewing existing evaluation systems and determining necessary changes. Nine commonalities represent the best practices: (1) participants share an attitude that the purpose of an evaluation system is to provide assistance in the…

The study examined social behaviors of 19 gifted and 19 nongifted preschool children. A social behavioral inventory was developed from repeated observations of interactions collected during an 8 week pilot study. Four general categories of behavior were observed and analyzed: verbal positive (greeting, conversation, compliment, concern, laughing,…

Little is known about how teachers encourage memory activity and strategy use in children. In order to gain such information, 69 teachers of grades K through 6 were observed in five 30-minute periods. A total of 292 strategy suggestions and 15 instances in which the teacher attempted to suppress spontaneous strategy use were observed. Teachers…

Observations of children's responses to picture books in three first-to-fourth-grade classrooms over a two-year period helped to form a descriptive framework for children's responses to picture books. Field notes, transcripts, and other data revealed that when children talked about picture books, they used the lexicon of the expert. They seemed…