The 1975 Community/Junior College Conference sought to define and describe evaluation, discuss measuring devices, and underscore the ethical reasons for fair evaluation. William P. Gorth began by discussing the purpose of evaluation--to provide data to a specified decision-maker for decision-making--and the implications which could be drawn from…

This document presents guidelines for use by museum staff members as they evaluate their institutional capabilities and programs. Guidelines are based on a new evaluation perspective--naturalistic evaluation--which can help museum staff assess their programs in a more interpretative, less judgmental way. Naturalistic evaluation is characterized by…

Three basic areas of definition, measurement, and research, voiced as concerns by members of the National Council of Measurement in Education (NCME) to its Task Force on Measurement Problems in Competency-Based Programs, are used as an organizer for a sponsored symposia and the papers in this monograph. The problem of the definition of competency…

This paper is a guide for determining how to measure the goals of citizen education programs. It presents a procedure by which educators or evaluators can identify program goals and determine what types of measures can best assess achievement of the goals. It does not suggest specific tests or measurement instruments; those can be developed or…

Problems in constructing criterion referenced tests related to inadequate technical criteria, and guidelines for their solution are discussed. The need to select a well-defined domain of behaviors is emphasized as the key to test construction and to understanding students' test performance. Considerations must also be given to the most effective…

This state assessment at the third-grade level is the first stage of a proposed three-year evaluation cycle of third, sixth, and ninth grades in North Carolina to aid personnel in making accurate decisions regarding improvement in the social studies curriculum. Students were randomly selected to represent the third-grade population in the state…

The Public Law enacted in 1971 requires that fundamental subject matter areas taught in Wisconsin's public schools be assessed. It is proposed in this paper that assessment of the State's social studies programs needs to focus its attention on the school environment, which educators can and should control, change, and improve, rather than…

This synthesized report of program goals and accomplishments for career education in Oregon lists key goals with corresponding performance objectives for 12 focal areas. These emphases for a career education program for elementary, secondary, post-secondary, and adult curriculums include: (1) career awareness, (2) career exploration, (3) career…

Built on the premise that the primary delivery system for vocational teacher education in Indiana has been the public institutions of higher education, this model for evaluating the State's total professional development efforts is a classification scheme organized around three major mission areas of vocational teacher education and their…

Discusses current issues in measuring library effectiveness, including rapid technological changes and increasing obsolescence in librarians' competencies; increased pressure for accountability; tools to help libraries become what they determine they should be rather than conforming to national standards; and how to determine the validity and…

Outlines the foundations of the qualitative and quantitative approaches to research and discusses the implications of these two completely different approaches in educational research. Points out they are not complementary as they are separate scientific paradigms.(MD)

Classifies errors as either systematic or blunder and uncertainties as either systematic or random. Discusses use of error/uncertainty analysis in direct/indirect measurement, describing the process of planning experiments to ensure lowest possible uncertainty. Also considers appropriate level of error analysis for high school physics students'…

This Fourth Northumbria International Conference on Performance Measurement in Libraries and Information Services centered on the theme of "meaningful measures for emerging realities" and contributors surveyed the field of performance measurement from that perspective. The proceedings begins with seven keynote and invited papers from…

Today, educators are expected to achieve high standards of learning for all students as they face the rapid changes brought about by the technologies and social challenges of this age. However, their expectations of what schools can do are really still an expression of their cultural anxieties. In a basic way, these challenges are the same as they…

Social studies assessment for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) should focus on students' oral and written discourse on social topics. Discourse is language produced by the student with the intention of providing a narrative, argument, explanation, or analysis. The assessment of discourse is important because: emphasis on…