The purpose of this study was to determine norms against which the characteristics of community library services could be tested. The five oldest community libraries in the Pinetown (South Africa) public library system were examined. Results showed that certain public library systems, like Pinetown, have made significant progress toward becoming…

Examines the process undertaken by the authors, both learning center administrators, when faced with the campus-wide process of restructuring. Explains their systematic examination of services offered by the learning center, the data gathered, and the changes made. Presents a model of a learning center that effectively meets the needs of a rapidly…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Amendments of 1997 mandated a shift from reactive strategies toward proactive interventions with students who experience both disability and behavioral challenges. The author describes how the methodology of Life Space Crisis Intervention can provide a source of data for functional assessment…

Analyzes two possible assessment outcomes: (1) differing results on two or more assessments; and (2) loss of achievement after improvement cycle. Proposes short- and long-term solutions to problematic results, including analyzing differences in tests and pre-planning to avoid flaws in assessment design. (NB)

Fifty-eight special education teacher preparation programs participated in this study which examined: (1) existing practices, policies, and levels of satisfaction about special education teacher program assessment activities and (2) methods used to assess student learning outcomes and faculty effectiveness. Internal and external program and…

This study examines the performance of a new method for assessing and characterizing dimensionality in test data using the NOHARM model, and comparing it with DETECT. Dimensionality assessment is carried out using two goodness-of-fit statistics that are compared to reference X[2] distributions. A Monte Carlo study is used with item parameters…

Hundreds of family life education Web sites are available on the Internet, allowing individuals and families unprecedented access to family life education information. Evaluation is critical to ensuring the quality of and improving these Web sites; yet, few Web site evaluations have been conducted. We formatively evaluated a new family life…

Assessment for learning involves the frequent, continual use of both formal and informal classroom assessments. It can be as simple as requiring students to respond to a lesson-embedded, one-item quiz as a way of gauging student understanding of what is being taught. Ideally, this innovative approach to classroom assessment is based on a careful…

The immediate and long-term effects of a Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) derived program offered at a Kaiser Permanente facility were evaluated. There were 73 participants in the initial sample and 23 in the 5-6 year follow-up sample. Child behaviors improved significantly immediately following treatment and some improvements were…

Dependent group contingencies were used to increase the on-task behavior of general education students in third and fourth grade classrooms. The class-wide intervention allowed students to gain access to preferred items/activities (identified via a stimulus preference assessment) contingent upon being on-task at "unknown" random times during math…

For many students and lecturers evaluation is confined to some form of survey. Whilst these can provide useful feedback, their focus is likely to reflect the values and norms of those commissioning and undertaking the evaluation. For real improvements in quality to occur both lecturers' and students' perspectives of factors that are important need…

Multiple-choice testing (MCT) has several advantages which are becoming more relevant in the current financial climate. In particular, they can be machine marked. As an objective testing method it is particularly relevant to engineering and other factual courses, but MCTs are not widely used in engineering because students can benefit from…

The New Community Schools initiative was introduced in Scotland in 1998 with the aims of improving participation, raising achievement, improving health and transforming communities. The success of the initiative was evaluated in terms of the stated aims. In relation to improving participation and raising achievement, this was straightforward:…

There has been a marked increase in attention to the measurement of ''outcomes'' after speech-language intervention for adult aphasia. Consumers, speech-language pathologists (SLPs), and funding sources desire evidence of therapy outcomes that improve communication and enhance the quality of life for people with aphasia. While many assessment…

If colleges of education are going to successfully prepare teacher candidates to meet NETS-T standards (Kelly, 2002), then teacher education programs must begin developing strategies to assess technology competencies of beginning college students. Colleges must then move beyond these assessments to providing student support for achieving…