The methodology and design of the process evaluation system of the Pawtucket Heart Health Program (an 11-year project for changing/documenting change in cardiovascular disease risk status of a northeastern city's residents) are described. Examples of the system's use are provided. The maintenance of such a system without substantial evaluation…

To the data analyst, outliers can present both a problem and an opportunity. Stray or outlying observations can severly distort estimates of a distribution's central tendency (like the mean) and estimates of one variable's relationship to another (like the regression coefficient). These problems are frequent and serious, and as a result,…

This report describes and evaluates the first year of a demonstration project to develop an on-demand telecommunications network linking four remote hospitals in southwestern Ohio to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. The Telecommunications Information Network (TIN) is designed to allow health care professionals at those hospitals to…

This paper discusses evaluation of human service programs. Evaluation can be useful because: (1) evaluative data can be relevant to the basic goal of a demonstration to field test some strategy or technique; (2) process evaluation can help generate enthusiasm for self-improvement among staff; (3) evaluation can help build a communication network…

This interim report, part of a series of documents examining the feasibility of the longitudinal evaluation of Project Developmental Continuity (PDC), presents the results of an analysis of PDC impact at the Head Start level, using Spring 1977 data. PDC is a Head Start Demonstration Program aimed at providing educational and developmental…

This paper reports on phase two of the evaluation of a model career information center established in a secondary school of a demonstration project. This report is based on student data collected after the center had been in operation eight months. The students' responses are reported in detail. The major findings from the survey are that 83% of…

This paper reviews ten years of evaluation efforts by the sponsors of Follow Through programs, maintaining that sponsors' evaluations provide a different, equally valuable perspective to the one provided by the national evaluations of Follow Through. Sponsors were persons or groups that developed educational models for Follow Through and enacted…

These technical appendices are bound separately from the report "Strategies for Knowledge Use and School Improvement" which evaluates the National Institute of Education's Research and Development Utilization (RDU) program. Appendix A contains a preliminary report on the statistical quality of the quantitative data, focusing primarily on…

This interim report describes the development of program implementation and cost studies for Year II of the process evaluation of Project Developmental Continuity (PDC), a Head Start demonstration program aimed at providing educational and developmental continuity between children's Head Start and primary school experiences. Specific areas focused…

This paper reports on phase one of the evaluation of a career information center established in a secondary school as a demonstration projects. The evaluation is based on a questionnaire developed to probe students' views regarding future planning, and to ascertain what plans they themselves were making. Interviews were also conducted to gain…

This paper reports on phase three of the evaluation of a model career information center established in a secondary school as a demonstration project. This report contains comparative data obtained from student responses, one year after the center had been in operation. This survey found that while the number of students seeking assistance from a…

This volume, part of the interim report on the National Home Start Evaluation, includes cost of the 16 Home Start projects and outcome data from the six summative sites. Findings and recommendations are presented on the intra-project cost-effectiveness of Home Start and the cost-effectiveness of Home Start as a Head Start option. Home Start, a…

This paper describes the practical steps employed in controlling interview data generated from a research project investigating teachers' perspectives on the worth of a sex equity educational demonstration project. These perspectives were then considered as value frameworks that might be used to formulate and interpret a naturalistic-responsive…

The movement toward integration of qualitative and quantitative research methods within the same study has been most evident in social policy research. Four major approaches to integrating can be identified in recent studies. The sequential, the parallel, and the fused models have been rather widely used. The interactive model, developed during…

Seven Wisconsin school districts formed a consortium to improve district level implementation of career education, K-12. Each district developed assessment and/or evaluation instruments to meet their specific needs, and circulated these instruments among all seven districts for review and feedback. After revision and field testing, these…