Beyond being responsive to the demand for online learning in the marketplace, UC Davis Extension lacks the system and tools to assess, improve and sustain the quality of online instruction it delivers. This study evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of online instructional quality at UCDE in accordance with Garrison's Community of Inquiry…

The increasing ability of social policy researchers to conduct randomized controlled trials (RCTs) at low cost could revolutionize the field of performance-based government. RCTs are widely judged to be the most credible method of evaluating whether a social program is effective, overcoming the demonstrated inability of other, more common methods…

Administered by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), in partnership with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Drug Free Communities Support Program (DFC) is a federal grant program that provides funding to community-based coalitions that organize to prevent youth substance use. Since the…

Quality assurance has been at the core of the construction of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) since the very beginning serving as a tool for trust, which enables comparability of degrees Europe-wide and will foster the societies by increasing mobility. The European Students Union (ESU) launched the "QUEST for quality for…

Research shows that early intervention is vital to improve the life chances of children in areas and situations of disadvantage. One also knows that many less advantaged families feel more comfortable receiving advice about supporting their children's literacy from a friend or peer rather than a professional, and equally that many people are keen…

The use of Short Blended Online Training (SBOT) for the development of Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) is a promising approach to facilitate the use of e-learning by academics. Adult learners prefer the blend of pedagogies such as the presentation, demonstration, practice and feedback if they are structured and…

Background: In an ongoing effort to improve teacher quality, most states require continuing education or professional development for their in-service teachers. Studies evaluating the effectiveness of various professional development programs have assumed a normal distribution of quality of teachers participating in the programs. Because…

A domestic credit union engages in a systematic performance improvement plan to better leverage a technical application within its organization. By engaging stakeholders early in the process, standardizing the organization's nomenclature, and building strategic partnerships, the credit union was able to achieve both quantitative and qualitative…

The purpose of this article is to describe the use of the Concerns Based Adoption Model (Hall & Hord, 2006) as a conceptual lens and practical methodology for professional development program assessment in the vocational education and training (VET) sector. In this sequential mixed-methods study, findings from the first two phases (two of…

Research on the outcomes of Montessori education is scarce and results are inconsistent. One possible reason for the inconsistency is variations in Montessori implementation fidelity. To test whether outcomes vary according to implementation fidelity, we examined preschool children enrolled in high fidelity classic Montessori programs, lower…

Raising a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be an overwhelming experience for parents and families. The pervasive and severe deficits often present in children with ASD are associated with a plethora of difficulties in caregivers, including decreased parenting efficacy, increased parenting stress, and an increase in mental and…

In May 2008 nearly 90,000 people died in the most powerful earthquake in modern Chinese history. Many were students killed in substandard schools, creating a sensitive disaster zone inside a nation whose civil society organizations are beginning to flourish. This paper examines the education earthquake relief program of an international NGO, and…

In divided societies education for diversity, often introduced via the combined approaches of civic education, citizenship education and community-relations activity, is advocated as a core element of the school curriculum. Its delivery, through formal and non-formal educational approaches, has been routinely recognised as an opportunity for…

School nurses can play a key role in the detection of significant refractive error. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of a statewide school nurse vision screening program by evaluating the outcomes of screening among first, third, and fifth graders in 10 schools in North Carolina during the 2009-2010 school year. Of the 2,726…

New federal and state policies require that teacher preparation programs (TPP) be held accountable for the effectiveness of their graduates as measured by test score gains of the students they teach. In this article, the authors review the approaches taken in several states that have already estimated TPP effects and analyze the proposals for…