Many problems are encountered when evaluating a complex, decentralized national program such as 4-H. Good effects of the federal evaluation mandate include local concern with program quality. Bad effects include that local agencies are forced to utilize noxious methodologies or to collect information they consider to be unimportant. (Author/GC)

A review found many of the studies that have assessed the efficacy of psychotropic medications with individuals with mental retardation (MR) are methodologically flawed. It details suggestions to improve the quality of medication studies and avoid methodological problems that prevent the scientific advancement of psychopharmacological research…

Calls for further research evaluating corporate adventure training (CAT) programs. Reviews activities and benefits associated with CAT, summarizes studies conducted on the efficacy of CAT programs, describes appropriate research designs for investigating how and why CAT programs work, and addresses barriers to producing meaningful research. (LP)

Applaudes National Art Education Association research efforts, but suggests that a major weakness in the program, and in art education in general, is the lack of a distinct philosophy of art education. Criticizes art-education researchers' over-reliance on theoretical authorities from outside of the field and neglect of their own experiences. (DSK)

A strategy proposed by T. Cook and D. Campbell (1979) was used to investigate attrition in a community-based literacy program, focusing on 287 Head Start families. Data revealed interactions among intervention program-centered characteristics and person-centered characteristics that have implications for study validity and generalizability.…

Documenting treatment integrity is an important issue in research and practice in any discipline concerned with prevention and intervention. However, consensus concerning the dimensions of treatment integrity and how they should be measured has yet to emerge. Advances from three areas in which significant treatment integrity work has taken…

The concept of treatment integrity cuts across a diversity of fields involved with providing treatments or interventions to individuals. In medical treatments, the concept of "treatment compliance" or "treatment adherence" is an important and problematic issue. In the field of nutrition, the concept of "dietary adherence" is important for…

This article critiques existing research on outcomes associated with the use of computer-assisted career guidance systems (CACGS) by middle and secondary student populations. Although widely used, CACGS have been subjected to relatively little empirical outcome research. Limitations identified in the existing CACGS literature include a focus on…

The General Accounting Office reviewed the Department of Labor's process for determining worker eligibility for the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program. TAA provides help in making the transition to new employment to workers certified by the Department of Labor as affected by imports. The program gives workers job counseling, occupational…

Participants in this conference urged that arrangements be made for collecting and preserving information about participants, personnel, and organizations involved in the Follow Through Program, and for conducting long-term review studies of the program. Papers presented at the conference were: (1) "A Brief History" (Robert L. Egbert and…

This Digest argues that management factors are central to youth program successes and failures and that these factor have been ignored in research on youth programs. Instead, the Digest notes that research and evaluation of programs have focused on the following: (1) whether the right audience is served; (2) whether to make incremental…

The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect funded a project to develop and field-test an evaluation procedure that could be used by interested states or communities to determine the extent of congruity between (1) their provisions for responding to the problems of child abuse and neglect, and (2) provisions prescribed in the Federal Standards…

Third in a series, the monograph summarizes the key evaluation issues, design approaches, and statistical techniques used in conducting the 1980-1983 impact evaluation of Indian Education Act Title IV Part A programs. The monograph describes the major problems in evaluating the program to determine the degree of its positive contribution to…

An attempt was made to estimate possible bias in terms of Normal Curve Equivalent (NCE) gains of Elementary Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Title I projects. Twenty-two state Title I reports for 1978 were examined. The analyses presented were directed at two major sources of bias: bias due to errors in local implementation of models, and bias due…