Discusses problems that social scientists face when evaluating social programs, including cost, methodological concerns, and the development and application of new analytical techniques. (GC)

Identifies three aspects of educational significance as important areas for teacher participation in the evaluation of innovative reading programs: the establishment of performance standards, the specification of program cost, and the evaluation of noncognitive benefits. (FL)

Reviews research that presents the criteria by which adult literacy program effectiveness can be assessed. (MG)

Program evaluation as a methodology is discussed, and its application to government export promotion programs is examined. Because the variety of approaches to export program evaluation, resulting data are often of limited usefulness. A programmatic approach to program evaluation is proposed. (TJH)

The various arts and sciences that comprise the field of program evaluation are discussed. It is argued that emphasis on rigor and expressive content has left other aspects of evaluation unexplored. Educational evaluators need to consider what programs mean and how they contribute to understanding. (SLD)

This report presents the results of a research and development effort for SpeechRater? Version 1.0 (v1.0), an automated scoring system for the spontaneous speech of English language learners used operationally in the Test of English as a Foreign Language™ (TOEFL®) Practice Online assessment (TPO). The report includes a summary of the validity…

How can indigenous evaluators implement culturally competent models in First Nations communities while ensuring that government grant evaluation requirements are met? Through describing the challenges in one tribal community in the United States, this article will discuss how American Indian/Alaska Native substance abuse prevention programs are…

The Youth Employment and Demonstration Projects Act of 1977 (YEDPA) authorized a range of research, evaluation, and demonstration activities to increase understanding of the employment problems of youth and to help determine the most effective policies and programs to address these problems. A major knowledge development objective under YEDPA was…

This paper synthesizes the existing literature on stakeholder involvement in program evaluation, drawing a basic distinction between deep involvement of a few versus less active involvement of a broad range of stakeholders. The paper then comments on the case studies described in this special issue and integrates them with previously published…

The Evaluation of Worker Profiling and Reemployment Services (WPRS) systems was designed to provide the U.S. Department of Labor information on how states are designing, implementing, and operating their worker profiling and reemployment services systems for dislocated workers and to compare the effectiveness of different state approaches to…

The first section of this paper considers what is understood by evaluation in the field of project design for English language teaching (ELT). Published accounts of ELT projects are examined for their policy on evaluation and a list of dominant themes in project evaluation is drawn up. The second section reviews theoretical issues involved in…

Introductory material offers observations useful to British readers regarding a Canadian educational program assessment manual, which is the main component of this document. The manual was developed at the British Columbia Institute of Technology and revised based upon the experiences of the biological sciences technology and broadcast technology…

Change process research had developed some practical tools and concepts which can assist in the determination of essential variables for an evaluation design. The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) Project at the Texas Research and Development Center in particular has developed specific measures which can be applied directly: "Levels of Use…

The paper considers the issues, decisions, and practices involved in evaluating the Technical Assistance Development System (TADS), a project to provide assistance to demonstration projects and start education agency grantees in the Handicapped Children's Early Education Program. Section 1 considers the focus for the evaluation in terms of its…

This paper presents a brief final report of the system and products of the cost-effectiveness/benefit analysis project conducted at Indiana University which combined the two concepts of cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis into a cost-effectiveness/benefit analysis model for postsecondary vocational programs. The project also developed…