Libraries devote serious resources to user-education programs and need to measure their effectiveness with hard data. This guide was designed to simplify the evaluation planning process and the making of evaluation instruments. The material was developed from hundreds of survey instruments used by librarians around the country. The handbook…

This paper outlines purposes of program evaluation and provides practical information to help individuals from a wide spectrum of backgrounds use evaluation to move their program ahead in a purposeful manner. Wisely moving ahead requires an assessment of an organization's past and present as well as an examination of its assumptions about the…

As part of a high-risk youth grant from the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, the Southwest Regional Laboratory developed and implemented a survey of alcohol sales establishments. The purpose was to assess the availability of alcohol in the community and changes in availability over time that may have an impact on findings related to project…

Every opportunity should be taken to communicate research findings both inside and outside government programs and make them accessible to policy makers, teachers, lecturers, parents, and employers. The "Interchange" series aims to further improve the Educational Research Unit's (ERU) dissemination of the findings of research funded by…

Because advances in medical science can lead to rapid changes in current health knowledge, a library collection of medical science materials can become dated rather quickly. This factor, as well as the many variables of library use and operation which impact the availability of current materials on the library shelves--loan periods, weeding…

This guide for pupil personnel administrators, provides procedures, timelines, resources, and sample statistical tables for conducting a needs assessment to meet the Illinois State Board of Education requirement. Basic recommendation procedures for conducting a pupil personnel services (PPS) needs assessment are identified as follows: (1) organize…

Evaluation is critical to demonstrating program value and impact and to better communicating outcomes to stakeholders. Purdue Extension Health and Human Sciences (HHS Extension) created an evaluation tool based on the need to collect statewide metrics on a standardized set of questions addressing the topics of food, family, money, and health. This…

A comprehensive evaluation process begins with school board policy. Policy should provide direction by addressing the issues of who and what are to be evaluated, why evaluation is needed, when and by whom the evaluation is to be completed, and how the information is to be reported. An evaluation system, regardless of who is evaluated, should focus…

This chapter discusses current methods of formative evaluation and suggests that these methods themselves need to be subjected to more critical research and evaluation in order to provide them with a more scientific base. Topics addressed include problems and methods associated with data gathering, evaluation designs, number of subjects available,…

Before vocational instructional products are adopted for statewide dissemination in South Carolina, they must undergo a field test. An effective field test design incorporates collection of data about the instructional products, the students, and the teachers who use the products. The design of a control group and an experimental group compares…

This paper focuses on evaluation questions for teacher centers, with the emphasis being that the question is as important as the answer. The questioning may be ordered in nine points: (1) For whom are the questions and answers useful? (2) What effects are desired? How should teachers change after the program? (3) How will this change be…

This manual describes a new coding technique to be used in training and supervising interviewers. Section A contains a brief description of the system, including information about its development and the rationale underlying the procedures, the purposes for which it is intended, and the ways in which it has been used. Section B contains…

The use of fieldwork in evaluation presents the fieldworker and agencies connected with educational evaluation with a number of critical problems. Four of these problems are identified and discussed: 1) definition of the "problem"; 2) multiplicity of signals, expectations, and responses; 3) dispensation of fieldwork data; and 4) collection of data…

Evaluation of a middle school humanities program is the focus of this report. It explains how to identify information needs and set priorities, how to obtain information from a variety of sources, and what to do with the data collected in terms of formulating recommendations for the school board. The variety of evaluation approaches presented are…