During the 2006 Spring semester, student affairs administrators at West Virginia University called on all student affairs units to develop assessment plans that focused on student learning. Student affairs units were required to begin their assessment plans by selecting at least one learning outcome to measure. The Assessment Council, ten…

The author and preservice teachers in a postbaccalaureate Issues and Reform in Secondary Education course engaged Ernest Stringer's (2004) model of action research to develop generative curricula. They adhered to Walter C. Parker's (1991, 2006) vision of public formation and essential social studies teaching and used student-centered teaching…

This article reviews the processes, issues and dilemmas involved in evaluation research undertaken in the context of changing and evolving government policy in education. The article is grounded in an evaluation of the National Partnership Project (NPP), the team conducted on behalf of England's Teacher Training Agency (TTA) in 2004-2005. It will…

When asking about animals, it is hard to find a person who doesn't recall a beloved pet or share that they've always loved dolphins, snakes, or ladybugs. A study of animals in an early childhood classroom, then, would seem an easy entry into science explorations with children. The article includes reflections on teaching to address the gaps…

Building Educated Leaders for Life (BELL) is a national not-for-profit organization whose mission is to increase the educational achievements, self-esteem, and life opportunities of elementary school children living in low-income urban communities. BELL has been engaged in formal evaluation, internally and externally, for more than five years and…

The phrases "best practice" and "evidence-based" are much in the air, and they imply that the answers are already out there. We just have to choose the right ones. Educational research in this connection is a kind of product testing. The U.S. Office of Education has made it a policy that rigorous product testing is the only…

This article presents the authors' response to the commentaries on their article. They focus on two important issues raised by most of the reviewers: (a) the curricular dependence of the proposed learning progression and the daunting (twin) challenges of bringing about changes in curriculum and assessment and consolidating and validating the…

The booklet describes the conceptual approach and operation of the evaluation plan used by Project CAST (Community and School Together), a community-ased career education program for handicapped students. Three levels of evaluation are proposed for providing data for both formative and summative evaluation; these levels are: (1) effort evaluation,…

This guide provides evaluators interested in new methods with a framework for determining the feasibility, utility, and effectiveness of the methods in field settings. To accomplish this intent, the body of this guide contains discussions of five checklists. Three of the checklists are to be used before a trial to determine the feasibility of one…

Reviewed is the development and evaluation of the instructional quality inventory (IQI), a systematic methodology for reviewing the three major products of the Instructional Systems Design process--objectives, test items, and instruction--before conducting student tryouts. The empirically based instructional design support system aids developers…

The various attempts made to evaluate the course in fundamentals of library science at Drexel University Graduate School of Library Science are assessed. (PF)

A student services--data information system was designed and implemented at the University of Iowa to determine and analyze process criteria for counseling activities in terms of effort, cost and function. (Author)

This paper explores the impact of the Texas Teacher Appraisal System (TTAS) through an analysis of interviews with 24 high school English teachers. The first part of the paper discusses the development of the TTAS and the second section describes the study. The teachers were asked if and how the TTAS had affected their teaching performance, what…

Noting that formative research on educational computer software has traditionally focused on comprehensibility, appeal, and usefulness, this report argues that these three elements tell us very little about the actual role that the formative researcher plays in the instructional design process. This paper outlines the complexity of the tasks and…

Described in this process evaluation are the first-year efforts to provide a specialized staff within the Bexar County District Attorney's Office, San Antonio, Texas, to perform advocacy functions for abused and neglected children involved in cases going through the criminal justice system. The report discusses how well the staff met the three…