This State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of Tennessee's Year 1 Race to the Top implementation, highlighting successes and accomplishments, identifying challenges, and providing lessons learned from implementation to date. Tennessee received its Race to the Top grant in July 2010 as part of the first round of the competition.…

Governmental and accrediting entities are demanding increased accountability and efficiency from colleges and universities. This chapter discusses strategies for developing institutional data sets that create a "culture of evidence." (Contains 5 figures.)

Researchers who use the concept of school climate in their research should be aware of the ways in which climate can be measured and what the different methods of measurement imply. Among the typical kinds of measures of school climate currently in use are normative approaches that focus on students' and teachers' perceptions of school norms,…

A bibliographic research project was conducted to identify the major articles published from 1974 to 1984 on measurement and evaluation in public relations, business, and organizational communication. The major findings of the project were as follows: (1) Some kind of evaluation and measurement is needed; (2) There is no concensus about the type…

This paper compares the present official poverty measure with a relative measure of poverty. The comparison is made both conceptually and empirically. These two aspects comprise the two major parts of the paper. Within the first part, the conceptual section, various issues common to both poverty measures as well as the measures themselves are…

As a result of the Experiential Education Evaluation Project the publication identifies instruments used to measure and assess experiential learning programs. The following information is given for each instrument: rationale for its inclusion in the study; precise issues or outcomes designed to measure, validity and reliability data; and…

Two approaches to criterion-referenced measurement are described and contrasted--domain-referenced testing and mastery testing. This paper is organized according to ten issues or stages in test construction: (1) content domain specification; (2) item construction; (3) item domain specification; (4) item analysis; (5) item selection; (6) parallel…

Available designs and instruments for evaluation are not adequate to meet the varied needs of evaluation. Therefore, evaluation needs to be reshaped in terms of 1) consideration of how and where currently available theories, designs, and instruments are proving useful, 2) identification of needs that cannot be met ith currently available…

Contends that, to the extent possible, the demonstrated needs of a library's constituency--inferred from the measurement of scientifically-observed objective data--must constitute the primary basis upon which to establish, develop, and discontinue library collections and services. One figure is used to illustrate these interrelationships.…

Argues that the failure to employ direct measures of the provider role and underconceptualization of existing provider-role measures have prevented family researchers from adequately testing hypotheses linking wives' employment to division of household labor. It concludes with suggestions for improved measurement of the provider role. (Author/BL)

Combining period objectives and base evaluations creates an environment of continuing education in a well-functioning college. Specific and measurable attainment can be documented under the heading of "Period Objectives" including: preparation and publication of articles, performance of research projects, and presentation of scholarly papers. (MLW)

The author argues that one of the worst aspects of logical positivism is its attempt to construct a value-free science and to exclude values from the scientific process. (Author/PN)

Steps for writing measurable objectives for students which reflect employable standards include: (1) the outcome state, (2) the condition statement, and (3) the criterion statement. Measurable objectives will help students to know if they are employable and, if not, what is needed to achieve employment. (EA)

Author presents a method for calculating item factor scores which are independent of item trait scores. (MB)