This guide gives middle school teachers and principals the tools they need to get answers to their questions about program evaluation. It shows how to use the information to work more effectively and efficiently and explains how to use program evaluation techniques to make sure that the approaches selected really solve the problems of interest.…

Student follow-up statistics must meet exacting federal standards; yet state educators and officials also wish to derive benefits from them. How should the model follow-up program be structured? Here is presented New Hampshire's solutions to this and other questions. (Author)

This article describes how job analysis, a method commonly used in personnel research and organizational psychology, provides a systematic method for documenting program staffing and service delivery that can improve evaluators' knowledge about program operations. Job analysis data can be used to increase evaluators' insight into how staffs…

The Nominal Group Technique (NGT) is one of several structured, small group approaches that can be used in the evaluation process. It has most often been used in needs assessment, to generate categories of potential need and/or alternative solutions to perceived specific problems. The process is based on a set of rules and uses silent idea…

Author presented a six-point model for purposes of diagnosing program success or lack of success. (Editor/RK)

Conventional methods of evaluating schools are inadequate, say these authors. In this article, they suggest a program for collecting data that would help diagnose and prescribe for the development of better school programs, rather than merely describe a school's present state. (Editor)

The methods used in the Teacher Corps Program Evaluation are based principally on the importance of securing the cooperation of local participants during data collection. Several principles concerning local cooperation were established and explained. These included encouraging active participation, encouraging local review of instruments,…

This toolkit presents a collection of accessible guidelines, measures, and tools to guide and implement evaluation of parenting education and support interventions. Designed primarily for people who are new to evaluation, it contains additional advice and guidance for those with a higher level of understanding or knowledge and it may also be…

The "CSE Program Evaluation Kit" is a series of nine books intended to assist people conducting program evaluations. This volume, the second in the kit, provides advice about planning an evaluation--from deciding on the major questions the evaluation is intended to address, through the general approach--and identifying the principal…

Describes a systematic approach for determining how much energy teachers will use in record keeping tasks associated with individualized instruction systems. Evaluates the information benefits that are important enough to warrant investment of teacher record keeping time. (Author/RK)

Describes the development of a pilot uniform data set (UDS) intended to serve as the primary data collection mechanism for all grants and standard cooperative agreements funded by the U.S. Office of Minority Health. The UDS is the product of a formative research project with implications for other program evaluations. (SLD)

"Black box" evaluation considers program input and outcomes (what) without considering process (how and why). A broader approach to evaluation based on implementation process theory explores the social system context of programs and provides information useful for improving them. (SK)

A discrepancy model defines what successful continuing medical education is and what it should be. Then data are collected and analyzed to describe the nature and scope of the discrepancy. This approach to educational needs assessment uses an outcomes focus to plan more effective continuing-education programs. (SK)

This article reviews issues in questionnaire design beyond the creation of standardized questions and basic data collection rules. The use of magnitude scales, the application of decision theory, and the use of a questionnaire framework that replicates how choices are made by respondents are among the new design approaches discussed. (SLD)

Describes the a-e-I-o-u program evaluation approach, a framework for organizing key evaluation questions that allows for many models of evaluation and/or methods of data collection. Evaluations by users of the approach have indicated that it provides a practical way to organize evaluation questions and collect appropriate data. (GCP)