Following a 2011 report by the National Research Council (NRC) on successful K-12 education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), Congress asked the National Science Foundation to identify methods for tracking progress toward the report's recommendations. In response, the NRC convened the Committee on an Evaluation Framework…

Despite the efforts of a number of national organizations focused on improving writing literacy, there has been little improvement in student writing skills over the past decade to keep pace with the growing demands of the workplace. Based on constructivist learning theory and the belief that students become better writers through continuous…

This study was conducted with the aim of establishing the effectiveness of the dual enrolment program as currently conducted between high school and college. It was contributory to the studies that have been previously conducted on college education, high school transition into college and the overall dual enrolment program. While conducting this…

Little information exists on the basic elements of diversity recruiting on college campuses. A set of questions was developed for the Collegiate Employment Research Institute's (CERI's) annual college hiring survey that attempted to capture the current practices and benchmarks being employed by organizations in their diversity recruiting programs.…

Sometimes, program evaluations report no difference in outcomes between persons given a program and those not given the program. Is this because the program does not work, or because it was poorly implemented? Achieving high quality program implementation is critical to achieving anticipated outcomes, and researchers have made considerable…

The study reviewed in this paper examined the effects of the instructional practice "Promoting Acceleration of Comprehension and Content Through Text" ("PACT"), an approach that aims to improve social studies content knowledge and reading comprehension. This study took place in two middle schools in a near-urban district in…

High turnover rates affect diverse professional areas. Recruiting and training new employees is costly for profit and non-profit organizations. Teacher induction programs provide the emotional and professional support that beginning teachers need in the transitory phase from being a student at a university to being a teacher in a classroom. To…

In mixed methods research (MMR), integrating the quantitative and the qualitative components of a study is assumed to result in additional knowledge (or "yield"). This narrative review examines the extent to which MMR is used in the field of childhood trauma and provides directions for improving mixed methods studies in this field. A…

This is a response to the document by Hughes et al. in this issue that offers a critique of the status of differential response (DR). We find the document to be helpful in intent, but do not find that it reflects scientifically sound methods, and contains many mischaracterizations of the status, impetus, research, and evaluation of DR to date. We…

Background: Via the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA), stronger accountability proponents are now knocking on the doors of the colleges of education that prepare teachers and, many argue, prepare teachers ineffectively. This is raising questions about how effective and necessary teacher education programs indeed are. While research…

The aim of the study was to assess the relative effectiveness of cessation, secondhand smoke and other tobacco control television advertisements in promoting quitlines in nine states from 2002 through 2005. Quarterly, the number of individuals who used quitlines per 10 000 adult smokers in a media market are measured. Negative binomial regression…

In this paper, I describe the design and evaluation of automated essay scoring (AES) models for an institution's writing placement program. Information was gathered on admitted student writing performance at a science and technology research university in the northeastern United States. Under timed conditions, first-year students (N = 879) were…

This article uses Dewey's (1938) concept of "end in view" to frame one California State University's purposeful action in implementing the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT). The authors provide a chronology of events that reveal the ways in which teacher education faculty were engaged in examining PACT outcomes and…

Dilemmas abound in the design, implementation, analysis, and interpretation of the outcomes of a summative performance assessment of teaching when used for licensing, for individual and program evaluation, and for accountability purposes. In this article, we explore the impact of the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) on the…

This program evaluation study examines an implementation of a one-to-one laptop initiative in a rural high school. Specifically, the researchers adopted a holistic view in evaluating the process and outcomes of this implementation by examining the interrelationships among the key participants using activity theory as a conceptual framework.…