Mounting pressure in the policy arena to improve teacher productivity either by improving signals that predict teacher performance or through creating incentive contracts based on performance--has spurred two related questions: Are there important determinants of teacher productivity that are not captured by teacher credentials but that can be…

Findings of a study that determined the ways in which practicing administrative course developers utilize instructional design activities in their design projects are presented in this paper. A survey was administered to 30 participants in a training and development group within a large organization and mailed to 43 other practicing instructional…

This briefing report on program evaluation notes that the new wave of family-centered, integrated services is forcing the field to rethink its methodology, and that the move towards outcome-driven reforms requires carefully defined outcomes and ways to measure them. Highlights of a seminar meeting held to explore these issues are included. The…

Findings of a paper that compared three analytic models for classifying public schools are presented in this paper. The first model is the traditional additive multiple linear regression model that assumes the use of a compensatory policy in assigning weights to school attributes. The second is an adaptation of Coomb's (1964) conjunctive model…

Although the importance of systematic evaluation of educational policy and practice is well established, various problems confound the intention of evaluating regional or national activity with regard to computer-related activities in education. At least two of these problems relate to a general conception of the appropriate entry points for…

Collection development for interdisciplinary areas is more complex than for traditionally well-defined disciplines, so new evaluation methods are needed. This article identifies variables in interdisciplinary fields and presents a model of their typical information components. Traditional use-centered and materials-centered evaluation methods…

Cognitive and language measures were administered to 37 preschoolers with language delay to investigate the agreement of the profiles in determining eligibility for language intervention services. Results found a sizable variation in categorization outcomes for the various intelligence quotient/language quotient profiles. The validity of the…

Issues concerning students' evaluation of college faculty are discussed. Several views of this process are presented. Having identified relevant variables or paradigms, possible relationships between the variables can be studied (models and theories). The assumptions underlying these paradigms include the following: that students have a right and…

Investments in web-based training (WBT) have increased presumably to attain cost savings and performance improvement. However, it has been difficult to assess the cost of WBT. In order to conduct an accurate cost analysis of WBT, three primary issues remain as follows: 1) identifying the missing cost components of WBT, 2) assessing the costs of…

Seven chapters present 31 propositions challenging traditional ideas about the nature and practice of program evaluation. Methods to improve evaluation models and approaches and ways to address intermediate and advanced evaluation issues are explored. The discussion also serves as an introduction to the most analytical and comprehensive of the…

In this article, the author discusses the new role assessment is playing in the higher education (HE) arena. Highlighted are the feelings of higher education faculty who observe the lack of preparation of students entering HE, and the fact that in introductory courses they are often teaching the skills--writing, critical thinking, basic…

This issue includes four papers conceptualizing and analyzing the issues of evaluation and social justice. An evaluative model is presented as a way of improving educational practice at the school level. Implications of evaluation are examined relative to a moral and ethical stance rooted in conceptions of social justice. (SLD)

This article identifies 12 commonly used models for evaluating superintendents and analyzes them through questions related to the "Personnel Evaluation Standards" of the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation. Models are grouped into those based on global judgment, judgment based on specific criteria, or data-driven…

Value-added models in education research allow researchers to explore how a wide variety of policies and measured school inputs affect the academic performance of students. Researchers typically quantify the impacts of such interventions in terms of "effect sizes", i.e., the estimated effect of a one standard deviation change in the…

The purpose of the Australian conference on mathematical assessment was to address the challenges to traditional methods of assessment that have resulted as part of the call for reform in the mathematics curriculum. The 28 papers presented were: "Who Assesses Whom and To What Purpose?" (Leone Burton; "Assessment of the Learned…