While program-level assessment has become common in higher education, questions remain about the impacts of assessment on teaching and learning in academic programs. Despite the considerable assessment activity happening in higher education, assessment scholars still have difficulty finding evidence of programs "closing the loop," that…

Based on demographic shifts toward more diversity and increasing health care disparities in the United States, nursing educators have been called upon to find innovative pedagogies to teach cultural competence and social justice concepts. International service-learning programs (ISL) are proliferating, as there is evidence that these experiences…

This study was designed to examine the decision-making process for keeping or cutting the music program in one selected public school district. Lekbery School District, in the Detroit suburb of Lekbery, Michigan, had not made extreme cuts to the music program in over 10 years, nor had it specifically targeted the music program when budgets cuts…

Learning analytics offers higher education valuable insights that can inform strategic decision-making regarding resource allocation for educational excellence. Research demonstrates that learning management systems (LMSs) can increase student sense of community, support learning communities and enhance student engagement and success, and LMSs…

The purpose of this publication is to share models and case examples of the process of inclusive arts curriculum design and evaluation. The first section explains the conceptual and curriculum frameworks that were used in the analysis and generation of the featured case studies (i.e. Understanding by Design, Differentiated Instruction, and…

Reviews alternatives to program evaluation. Suggested qualitative methods are interviews; participant observation; and journal analysis. Meaningful designs for evaluation are case studies; participatory and collaborative evaluation; and mixed methods. Uses for evaluation are utilization-focused evaluation; explicating and developing program…

This study explores the social, political, economic, and cultural dimensions of a U.S.-based transnational education (TNE) program in China. TNE refers to education programs provided by an institution located in another country, and this study focused on higher (tertiary) education. Six questions provided the focus for this study: (1) What are…

Participant observations and key informant interviews were used in three case studies, each case corresponding to a different degree of researcher involvement in a Canadian school district's participatory evaluation. The contextual differences observed are discussed, and the usefulness of the approach to studying evaluation methods is described.…

Pre- and postvoyage interviews with seven participants on a 10-day adventure trip aboard the sail training ship Leeuwin revealed that the experience met the expectations of most participants and that participants experienced increases in self-confidence, self-esteem, motivation, and tolerance. Suggests that prevoyage briefing, postvoyage…

Wilderness therapy program theory is reasoned to be, as Weiss (1997) describes, a tacit theory, or one which is implied and not clearly articulated. This is evidenced by several meta-analyses which have consistently found either very limited or no detailed descriptions of the wilderness therapy programs under investigation. The purpose of this…

The evaluation of 24 elementary schools in 11 Utah school districts using extended day or extended year programs is the purpose of this summary report. Specific research goals are the identification of program characteristics; program implications for education in general, personnel, families, communities, and the physical structure; level of…

Participant observation is a research and evaluation strategy in dealing with complex educational settings, organizations, and curricula is explored. Three alternative models are presented. The first is a general structural model involving three research strategies: an experimental design with pretests and posttests; a social survey with…

A case study illustrates the ways in which local reactions to a program evaluation directly threaten its validity, and shows that not all participants in a qualitative evaluation study understand or defer to the commitments of democratic evaluation. Ethical concerns in program evaluation are considered. (SLD)

This paper describes a project in which teacher education students were paired with practicing teachers for a semester-long e-mail conversation about classroom accommodations for students with learning disabilities (LD). The objective of the project was to enable undergraduate teacher education students planning to teach students with learning…

The practice of interviewing individuals rather than groups has been based largely upon methodological concerns for preventing contamination of data. The assumptions that (1) the data provided by individuals can, in aggregate, yield social truth; (2) individuals are conscious of social phenomena; and (3) the whole of social reality is equal to the…