This study provides preliminary evidence from an Italian in-service training program addressed to lower secondary school teachers which supports school improvement plans (SIPs). It aims at exploring the association between characteristics/contents of SIPs and student improvement in math achievement. Pre-post standardized tests and text analysis of…

This chapter provides a selective review of some contemporary approaches to program evaluation. One motivation for our review is the recent emergence and increasing use of a particular kind of "program" in applied microeconomic research, the so-called Regression Discontinuity (RD) Design of Thistlethwaite and Campbell (1960). We organize our…

There is growing interest in the concept of "mechanism" across many areas of the social sciences. In the field of program and policy evaluation, a number of scholars have also emphasized the importance of causal mechanisms for explaining how and why programs work. However, there appears to be some ambiguity about the meaning and uses of…

The Major Field Test in Psychology (MFT) is a standardised test designed to assess subject mastery at the conclusion of an undergraduate career. Eighty-one graduating majors completed the MFT and 56 of them also took a multiple-choice exam of questions drawn randomly from an introductory psychology test bank. Like the MFT, the constructed exam was…

At Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia, the majority of students engage in paid employment alongside their studies; and, every student has the opportunity to engage with work-integrated learning as a key component of their academic course. This paper explores an innovative structured approach the university has initiated to align these two…

In July 2011, the University of Tennessee Board of Trustees approved a new strategic plan called VolVision for the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) campus. VolVision provides the road map for UTK to become a Top 25 university. For more than a year before the board approved the plan, faculty and administrative leaders led focus groups and…

Courses designed specifically to develop students' managerial skills began to emerge in the 1980s, in response to criticism of the theoretical and quantitative orientation of business school coursework. Since then, a number of management textbooks focusing on skills-based learning have been published, and many instructors have become…

This study investigates how literacy was constructed at an adult literacy organization's volunteer tutor-training program. By drawing on qualitative analysis of training texts used during training, such as training evaluations, and data gathered from interviews with experienced tutors, it is possible to identify the assumptions about literacy…

Entrepreneurial training programme has to do with acquiring relevant skills in which an individual has to be sensitized, motivated and guided to achieve self-reliance and self employment. The paper examined the relevance of entrepreneurial training programme in the universities to graduates' productivity. Three null hypotheses were formulated. A…

The objectives of this research were: to design a creative thinking development program for learning activity management of secondary school teachers, and to study the program's efficiency and effectiveness of usage. The results of the study were as follows: the program includes the vision, principles, objectives, content, program development…

Given that there is no universal way to measure implementation fidelity, instructional designers developing instructional innovations may find themselves faced with the challenge of determining the extent to which teachers' implementation of an instructional model is faithful. This article contends that a faithful implementation is one in…

This paper describes efforts to increase the quality in early care and education through targeted coaching. A collaborative including several community agencies and a university developed a framework of support for early care and education providers, using coaching as its foundational basis, called Coaching to Quality (CTQ). This paper provides a…

The changing market for doctorally prepared workers led one institution to examine its overall approach to defining and supporting professional doctorates. After a review of existing scholarship and internal practices, a white paper was created to capture the various ways that these degrees can be distinguished from the academic doctorate (PhD) at…

This paper reports the theoretical conceptualisation, statistical development, and application of an Implementation Index to evaluate the quality of implementation of the KidsMatter Primary school mental health initiative in Australia. Questionnaires were received from the parents and teachers of almost 5000 students, and also from KidsMatter…

This is a critical reflection on the results of a study that the French International Center for Pedagogical Studies (CIEP) piloted in 2008-2009 in five sub-Saharan African countries which were implementing curriculum reforms adopting the "competency-based approach". The article refers to a seminar on this process and the ideas expressed…