This handbook provides a practical model for developing and using a comprehensive faculty evaluating system that responds to the specific needs, concerns, and characteristics of the faculty and administration of an individual academic unit. It outlines an eight-step procedure that focuses on the determination of: (1) the faculty role model; (2)…

In July 1996, California began its Class Size Reduction (CSR) Initiative. To gauge the effectiveness of this initiative, an analysis of its objectives and an overview of proposed strategies for evaluating CSR are presented here. An outline of the major challenges that stand between CSR and its mission are provided. These include logistical…

A reorganized version of standards to be utilized for those who are involved with educational evaluation in Brazil was the result of a critical review of evaluation standards which were originally elaborated by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation. The conceptual framework for the critical review comprised logical…

The "Standards for Evaluations of Educational Programs Projects Materials," formulated by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation raise certain questions which should be regarded as indicating a further complementary perspective rather than as a criticism of their formulation. The possibility of conflict between the…

Principles that institutional researchers should follow are discussed. The most important dictate is to present decision-makers the bare minimum of information necessary for the task; the material should be simple, short, and succinct. A report to assist decision-makers should not include extensive supporting documentation. The first step is to…

This paper reports on a study designed to assess the impact of problems in the system for the evaluation of student performance on student disengagement from high school. The study is guided by the theory of evaluation and authority developed by Dornbusch and Scott. Surveys administered to a 5 percent sample of students (N=293) in four suburban…

In developing two course/instructor evaluation instruments, four areas were considered by the appointed committee: determining the criteria to be evaluated, designing the forms, writing implementation instructions, and assessing faculty participation in the use of forms. The resulting instruments are presented. (BP)

If first language maintenance is considered to be a goal of bilingual-bicultural educational programs, then alternative evaluation strategies are called for that will examine the "politics of speaking" in terms of determining the extent to which the informal or "hidden" curriculum and social organization of the program was inadvertently…

Early retirement plans (ERPs) have recently been considered and implemented at a number of universities as a means to address their need to contain costs while simultaneously generating new ideas and energy within the institution through the revitalization of faculty ranks. This endorsement of ERPs by university administrators, however, is…

Despite national demands to improve the weak literacy skills of young adults, educators and policymakers lack the diverse types of data needed to make changes. The report, "Workplace Competencies: The Need to Improve Literacy and Employment Readiness," points out that past measures of literacy have lacked comparability, resulting in no accurate…

Although hundreds of state and local organizations provide homelessness prevention assistance, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) could not determine the effectiveness of this assistance because few assistance providers have the resources available to collect the client follow-up data needed for evaluation. Homelessness prevention programs,…

In this context, ethics refers to a set of normative standards for resolving dilemmas that policy analysts or evaluators often face with regard to what they should do in performing their roles in the interests of societal desirability. The dilemmas relate to: (1) prediction versus prediction plus prescription; (2) evaluation versus evaluation plus…

This general program evaluation framework provides a wide range of criteria that can be applied in the evaluation of diverse federal progams. The framework was developed from a literature search on program evaluation methods and their use, the experiences of the United States Government Accounting Office (GAO), and consideration of the types of…