This pamphlet includes several program transcripts on educational research from the National Public Radio series, Options in Education. Dr. Harold Hodgkinson, former Director of the National Institute of Education, and Noel Epstein, Education Editor of the Washington Post, discuss "The Quality of Media Reporting on Education" and whether…

The major objectives in the establishment of a clinic in a department of psychology are to provide a setting for clinical training and for clinical research. Five issues must be considered in order to evaluate a departmental clinic effectively. First, there should be prior specification of objectives and periodic restatement of goals that include…

Evaluations of social programs based upon quasi-experimental designs are typically plagued by problems of nonequivalence between the experimental and comparison group prior to the experiment. In such settings it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to isolate the effects of the program from the confounding effects associated with the…

This study of the federal government's evaluation of social programs indicates that it is virtually impossible to establish a bias-free, valid, and reliable system of inquiry to determine the effects of social programs. Divided into five chapters, the document examines the aspirations and limitations of evaluations, methodology, evaluation in the…

A review of followup study research is reported which focused on issues and trends in the evaluation of vocational education programs and their implications for human resource development. The analysis of representative studies selected from a survey of the literature is divided into four sections, one for each of four types of studies: (1)…

The relative efficiency of various manpower programs as seen through cost-benefit analysis is assessed, and the contribution that cost-benefit analysis has made in evaluating manpower programs is discussed, taking into account a variety of methodologies presented in different studies. Vocational rehabilitation appears to yield the highest…

Federal assistance for special educational programs makes necessary the regular study of evaluations of thousands of innovations in compensatory education, bilingual education, and reading programs. The results are reported to the President and to Congress. However, investigating organizations find only a few programs with adequate evidence and…

Instructional leadership for principals is not a panacea for the ills of education. Efforts to alter principal practices to meet this poorly defined and poorly researched construct reflect a lack of self-reference in the educational field. More study and thought are needed before plans of action are imposed. (BJV)

Experience-based training and development (EBTD), also known as Outdoor Management Development (OMD) in Great Britain and corporate adventure training (CAT) in Canada and Australia, is a field that uses adventure activities to bring beneficial change to organizations, primarily corporations. Activities used in EBTD and CAT programs include…

This study determined whether experts in special education transition services perceived a need for a common theoretical model and core set of outcome variables for follow-along research at the state level, evaluated a model for use in follow-along studies, and suggested research questions to be measured in a common format across statewide…

Recruiting schools and kids to participate in drug prevention evaluations is no longer, if it ever was, a "done deal." Since the mid-1980s, schools have been inundated with requirements for drug programs and requests to cooperate with program evaluations. As a consequence, both treatment and control schools are harder to find. In addition, many…

This conference proceedings document serves to establish the state of the art, highlight important methodological and conceptual issues, and identify priorities for future research in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems. The document includes the papers from two opening presentations, issue papers and reactant papers, a…

The Wisconsin "Learnfare" policy requires that teenagers receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) attend school regularly until they have completed high school. The population of teen parents and dependent teens receiving AFDC from September 1988 through December 1989 included 22,241 males and 30,995 females. About half…

This handbook has been prepared to address one specific problem: How can the techniques of program evaluation be effectively applied to produce useful information about the operations and impact of moral education programs in secondary schools? The handbook is divided into five chapters. The introductory chapter describes the background and…

Alcohol education and rehabilitation programs are widely accepted as an integral part of the enforcement of drunk driving laws; however, careful evaluations of these programs generally fail to show subsequent beneficial effects on traffic crashes. This fact is due in part to the many barriers to conducting sound program evaluations and in part to…