This chapter examines the potential pitfalls in evaluating the effectiveness of gifted education programs and applies recent trends in the assessment and maintenance of quality in industrial applications. Evaluators are encouraged to avoid the temptations of bad evaluation which may appear to offer simpler alternatives to complex tasks but…

The Boeing Company is involved in partnerships with Washington state schools in the area of applied academics. Over the past 3 years, Boeing offered grants to 57 high schools to implement applied mathematics, applied communication, and principles of technology courses. Part 1 of this paper gives an overview of applied academics by examining what…

DAY ONE is an education program offered to parents of newborn children to help them become the child's first educator. The DAY ONE Research Project was a collaborative effort of the West Virginia Task Force on Children, Youth, and Families and the Charleston (West Virginia) Area Medical Center Women and Children's Hospital to measure the…

This guide is the third in a series of guidelines designed to be a framework for positive action at the school site and in the classroom through the High Schools That Work program, an effort to raise the achievement of career-bound students. Its purpose is to help high schools determine where they are in relation to the goals and key practices of…

This abstract and outline for a workshop explore the use of focus groups in evaluation. Cerritos College in Norwalk (California) conducted a series of focus groups to evaluate a new matriculation program. A focus group is a technique often used in marketing research to explore a specific topic. It is a group interview conducted in a casual setting…

As the technology of the workplace changes, U.S. workers are called upon to have increasingly high workplace literacy skills in order to remain competitive. These skills encompass more than academic skills of reading and arithmetic; they involve complex applications of reasoning and problem-solving skills. In order to meet the need for workers…

This monograph contains six papers examining the field of adult education, especially in Finland and England. It explores how the body of knowledge and theory on adult education has developed and suggests where the profession of adult education and its students are headed. Titles and authors are as follows: "Legitimization in Adult Education:…

This paper outlines seven specific areas that parents should examine when visiting a prospective child care center for their child. Parents should examine: (1) the center's staff; (2) the center's parent relations; (3) the physical and teaching environment; (4) the curriculum; (5) staff-child interaction; (6) the administration; and (7) their…

A follow-up study was conducted at William Rainey Harper College (WRHC) to evaluate and obtain externally required information about the dietetic technician program. Surveys were mailed to the 13 students who graduated from the program between spring 1990 and fall 1992 requesting information on their employment status, job title, length of…

This digest illustrates the variety of basic and theoretical issues in evaluation with which aspiring evaluators should be conversant in order to claim that they know the knowledge base of their profession. Coverage of the issues includes: the four steps in the logic of evaluation; whether qualitative evaluations are valid; whether it matters if…

In a climate of increasing concern with educational accountability and quality, it has been important to reappraise the issues of assessment and evaluation in relation to early childhood care and education. This document is comprised of three papers describing approaches to assessment and evaluation used in Te Whariki, a national curriculum…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) was developed by the Arts Education Consensus Project to establish objectives for assessing arts instruction in elementary and secondary schools. The project identified objectives for arts education in general and individually for dance, music, theater, and the visual arts in grades 4, 8, and…

In 1994, Norway implemented large-scale educational reforms that altered the face of education in that country. An overview of these changes in upper-secondary education is presented in this paper. The report describes how international competition created a sense of urgency, prompting the government to rush in with wholescale education changes.…

Project SEED is a U.S. nationwide program in which professional mathematicians and scientists from major universities, research corporations, and the community teach abstract, conceptually oriented mathematics to full-sized classes of elementary school children on a daily basis as an extra-period supplement to their mathematics program. The…

In 1995 the Rowland Unified School District (California) developed a new mission statement defining core values for the district's preparation for the 21st century. The district then set about implementing a new accountability system with existing measures to establish baseline data for measuring progress toward the new goals. The focus in this…