The author considers whether current evaluation practice is of value to the Cooperative Extension System. Evaluation use and influence in Extension are characterized through literature review and examination of case examples informed by correspondence with study authors. The more than 675 evaluations examined consistently yielded specific and…

Soon after the author began her first year as a Teach for America (TFA) corps member, she realized how underprepared she felt teaching first grade. Although she grew as an educator over time and still committed to working in education, it was an uphill battle. And, like most other TFA corps members, she left teaching within the first three years.…

Higher education has made impressive progress concerning student learning outcomes assessment practices. Yet--despite the assumption that better assessment would lead to better student learning--few examples of demonstrable student learning improvement exist at the academic degree or university levels. In 2014 Fulcher, Good, Coleman, and Smith…

Purpose: This paper aims to present a collaborative action research project conducted at the University of Southampton with the aim to promote curriculum and professional development in education for sustainable development (ESD) and learn from everyday practices of academics. Design/methodology/approach: An action research approach guided by…

The present investigation examines the schoolwide applications model (SAM) as a potentially effective school reform model for increasing equity-based inclusive education practices while enhancing student reading and math achievement for all students. A 3-year quasi-experimental comparison group analysis using latent growth modeling (LGM) was used…

The authors describe their experiences assessing writing-across-the-curriculum and general education programs, paying particular attention to processes and their consequences. At the University of Hawai'i at Manoa (UHM), a relatively large research-extensive university, general education assessment activities have been designed around two goals:…

Undergraduate programs in business are expected to provide a comprehensive learning for their students in order to prepare them to be able to deal with complex business problems in their jobs. Business schools attempt to provide this learning through various curricular design strategies. This paper proposes the use of an undergraduate course in…

This paper presents the Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness Subcommittee's fifth hearing in preparation for the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act. The last time the Workforce Investment Act reauthorized was in 1998. The Workforce Investment Act was designed to streamline and coordinate job training programs. It…

Owing to national emphasis on accountability, teacher education programs are under close scrutiny by federal and state-level entities to justify their purpose and usefulness in preparing future teachers. Accrediting agencies have set high standards, which ask for systematic assessment of teacher education programs and their candidates. The purpose…

The need for capacity-building in teacher education in the UK has been raised as a serious issue by a number of commentators. Tensions about the place of research in teacher education have persisted for many decades, but following changes to the core funding mechanisms in the UK, the maintenance of education research bases within many universities…

The paper offers a retrospective evaluation of recent evaluative studies of bilingual programs in the Australian state of Victoria, in an attempt to determine how successfully the evaluation process met the dual criteria of external accountability and development. The programs in question were located in primary or secondary government schools and…

Using concepts from the evaluation literature, this case study describes the instrumental, conceptual, and political influence of the Head Start National Reporting System (NRS) and on-going child assessments in a local Head Start program. This study found that a local program intentionally aimed to limit the influence of the NRS. The NRS validated…

The authors tell about their heterogeneous 91 person research and evaluation unit at an operating foundation in St. Paul, Minnesota. They focus on evaluation for program improvement, one of several purposes of studies they work on. The three authors write from their different manager positions within the unit. Included are the context of the…

The fundamental concepts of Achieving the Dream--using evidence to develop and evaluate strategies for improving student learning and success--are also important to successful efforts to meet accreditation requirements. Following the Achieving the Dream approach can help community colleges organize and document improvement efforts in ways that are…

This article deals with an action research project, where a group of university teachers from different disciplines reflected on and gradually extended their knowledge about how to support students' academic literacy development. The project was conducted within a "research circle" [Bergman, L. 2014. "The Research Circle as a…