Describes the efforts of the language arts staff of the Edmonton (Canada) Public Schools to develop statements of student outcomes that were generalizable across grade levels and tests of writing achievement based on those outcomes. (FL)

This overview of educational evaluation in the Netherlands provides background and details the state of the art in student, curriculum, and innovation evaluation. The role of international evaluation issues (such as evaluation criteria and the decision-making process) in evaluation theory and practice in The Netherlands is discussed. (BS)

Point of entry problems are faced by evaluators when asked to start an evaluation at an inappropriate time or to perform an inappropriate study. The fundamental purpose of evaluation is to help improve services. Guidelines are presented for choosing when to do a context, input, process, or product evaluation. (GDC)

Examines instructional design (ID) courses offered in instructional technology masters program at San Jose State University. Course objectives, participants' needs assessment, resources and study methods, and student evaluation are discussed for introductory ID course; learning activities of advanced ID seminar are outlined. Sample student…

Describes the results of a survey of rehabilitation centers to determine evaluation methods for possible alexia (the loss of ability to read that results from a brain injury) and presents some suggestions for rehabilitative testing and teaching materials. (HOD)

This article proposes that the behavior of teachers conducting small-scale evaluations of their own programs is analogous to the behavior of students solving curriculum-specific problems in classrooms and that teaching methods for training students in problem-solving skills can be usefully adapted to training teachers in evaluation skills.…

In 2000, PBS contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR) to conduct a five-year evaluation of "Ready To Learn" outreach. The evaluation includes an impact study of the effects of "Ready To Learn" workshops on participating parents and early childhood educators, as well as on the preschool children in their care. Conducted in 20 "Ready…

The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature on family support services for families with young children with disabilities. Within the last two decades, the focus of early intervention has begun shifting from child-centered to family-centered practice with an emphasis on providing comprehensive family support in the delivery of…

This paper examines issues related to the statistical power of impact estimates for experimental evaluations of education programs. The focus is on "group-based" experimental designs, because many studies of education programs involve random assignment at the group level (for example, at the school or classroom level) rather than at the student…

After two years of unsuccessful pilot programs for e-portfolio development within the Teacher Education Department at the University of Indianapolis, implementation of an INTASC (Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium) standards-based assessment system including digital portfolio building using TaskStream (TS) seems to hold…

Many of the services, functions, and publications of Research and Planning at Nova Southeastern University, Florida, were studied. The evaluation was aimed at university improvement and to meet the requirements of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools that each institution examine the effectiveness of its…

This report discusses the outcomes of a study that examined the use of accommodations in state assessment by students with disabilities and explored several related factors. A survey of states indicated 12 states (Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and West…

This case study examined the influences of autonomy and uncertain expectations of accountability on the functioning of an urban charter school during its initial years of development. The school studied was a charter school in its second year of development that was attempting to measure student improvement in challenging areas such as social…

The last few years have seen a growing interest in comparative international research on children and youth and in the development of internationally comparable indicators of well-being. This paper provides an overview of 13 international surveys that can be used to support such work. In addition to a basic description of the survey, each overview…

A statewide performance-based accreditation system began using a performance index in 1995-96 to indicate where school districts fall in the distribution of accreditation levels. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there was a significant gain in the performance index in the second year. The performance index was based on the…