Concerns about noncompletion and the quality of the 1st-year student experience have been linked to recent changes in higher education such as modularisation, increased class sizes, greater diversity in the student intake and reduced resources. Improving formative assessment and feedback processes is seen as one way of addressing academic failure,…

This article explores the teaching styles of the professor, learning styles of the students, characteristics of the students, comparisons of Pearson's correlation coefficients between student grades earned in the course versus their cumulative grade point averages, and factors to consider for future Web-enhanced courses. The objectives of the…

Quality measures were originally developed for research aimed at describing the settings that children spend time in and identifying the characteristics of these environments that contribute to children's development. They were also developed to guide improvements in practice. Increasingly, however, measures of quality are being used for further…

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Practice Guide "Effective Literacy and English Language Instruction for English Learners in the Elementary Grades" addresses the challenge of providing effective literacy instruction for English learners in the elementary grades. The Guide offers five specific recommendations for district administrators…

The Department of Instructional Technology at Utah State University instituted a distance education Master's degree program enrolling over 60 students at sites throughout Utah. Initial funding for the program was provided by Utah's Higher Education Technology Initiative (HETI). This report is part of an ongoing effort to provide feedback to the…

Definitions and short explanations of key concepts in the field of instructional evaluation are presented. Evaluation is defined as the process of determining the value of programs, projects, materials, and personnel. It is distinguished from research in that the aims of research are less time- and situation-specific, attempting to uncover…

The North Carolina Teacher Performance Appraisal System (TPAS) embodies both formative and summative evaluation of teachers, and is based on multiple observations and collection of data on teacher performance. This study was conducted to report on a survey of the effectiveness of the TPAS as perceived by 639 evaluators (Es) and 2,732…

This digest, based on a full report of the same title, provides an examination of the improvement of college teaching and argues for the central involvement of faculty themselves in collaborative peer review and looks at some central issues and challenges to implementation. Since summative evaluation involved in tenure and promotion decisions…

This literature review and evaluation "tool kit" provides a summary of the research literature about the evaluation of large-scale intervention policies like the Blueprint for the Future program of the Scarborough (Ontario, Canada) Board of Education. This report is intended to assist in creating a realistic plan for the Blueprint…

This is a checklist for use by science coordinators, school principals, science supervisors, and teachers in identifying strengths and weaknesses of science programs in grades five through eight. It can also be used by science coordinators during school visits. This guide contains space for recording information concerning: school name and…

A process evaluation was conducted to determine the status of the School District of the City of Saginaw's Adult Basic Education (ABE) program operations during 1991-92. The instrument focused on nine aspects of an ABE classroom: start of class; time spent in instruction (for three subject areas and total); modes of instruction; extent of…

The Students' Evaluations of Educational Quality (SEEQ) instrument measures distinct dimensions of teaching effectiveness. Previous research has shown that ratings of a given instructor tend to generalize over different course offerings, but research has not examined whether each instructor had a generalizable, distinguishable profile of scale…

Questions frequently arise about the origins of outcome-based education and mastery learning, their similarities and differences, their theoretical and practical links, and evidence about their effects on student learning. Historical and theoretical perspectives show a clear distinction between outcome-based education and mastery learning.…

This study presents a formative evaluation of "The Intelligent Physics Tutor," an interactive software program designed to improve high school physics students' problem-solving skills. The purposes of this evaluation were to describe how the "Tutor" was used in the pilot high school class; to determine teacher and student…

This 1990-91 program evaluation reports on the special education instructional programs of the Des Moines, Iowa, public schools which serve approximately 3,600 students daily and over 5,000 students per year with special education services as prescribed in their Individualized Education Plans. The three primary sources of program funding are: (1)…