Evaluation is an important program component of RALLY and helps to document the gains that stem from this program. This article describes the quality of RALLY implementation and selected student outcomes of an exemplary RALLY program at an urban middle school. The findings showed effects on students' resiliency as well as academic success, as…

A well-constructed, step-by-step protocol is a critical starting point for teaching undergraduates new techniques, an important record of a lab's standard procedures, and a useful mechanism for sharing techniques between labs. Many research labs use websites to archive and share their protocols for these purposes. Here we describe our experiences…

In 1996, United Way of America (UWA) developed and began disseminating the most widely used approach to program outcome measurement in the nonprofit sector. Today an estimated 450 local United Ways encourage approximately 19,000 local agencies they fund to measure outcomes. The authors first describe and then assess the strengths and limitations…

Since its initiation in 2003, the College Student Western China Program has had several satisfying achievements. At the same time, however, problems exist in the project. This article gives a brief analysis of problems encountered in the project from the aspects of publicity and campaign work, plans and schedules, student participation, voluntary…

Although random assignment is generally the preferred methodology in impact evaluations, it raises numerous ethical concerns, some of which are addressed by securing participants' informed consent. However, there has been little investigation of how consent is obtained in social experiments and the amount of information that can be conveyed--and…

The primary purpose of this study is to determine whether providing structured academic instruction in reading or math to students in grades two to five during their afterschool hours--instead of the less formal academic supports offered in regular after-school programs-- improves their academic performance in the subject. This is the second and…

The American Association of Community Colleges' (AACC) Plus 50 Initiative (2008-2011), funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies, was created to build the capacity of community colleges nationwide to develop programming that engages the plus 50 learner. The Initiative supported a pilot group of 13 two-year institutions to develop or expand college…

In order to assess how completely a Small Learning Community (SLC) and/or Career Academy is implemented in any given site, and to connect the degree of implementation with the amount of improvement in student performance, two kinds of information are needed. The first is information on the quality of implementation, which can be collected by…

The purpose of this guide is to help chronically struggling schools restructure. "Restructuring" means major, rapid changes that affect how a school is led and how instruction is delivered. Restructuring is essential in achieving rapid improvements in student learning. The focus is on helping education leaders choose strategies that…

Strong school and family ties have long shown success in influencing positive child development and lasting academic success. While a multitude of programs exist to help facilitate the school-family connection, one program in particular, Families and Schools Together, or FAST, stands out as an effective prevention program that is suitable for a…

Most K-12 evaluations are designed to make inferences about how a program implemented at the classroom or school level affects student learning outcomes and such inferences inherently involve hierarchical data structure. One methodological challenge for evaluators is linking program implementation factors typically measured at the classroom or…

The purpose of this paper is, generally, to discuss issues related to the evaluation of implementation and, specifically, to provide practical advice about Follow Through implementation and its evaluation. First, the discussion explores philosophical and theoretical assumptions regarding (1) the nature of implementation and evaluation; (2)…

Evaluaton of teacher inservice is considered and several principles are offered, including that evaluation must be needs-based and innovative. The importance of three functions of evaluation is stressed: (1) planning, (2) implementation, and (3) impact. (CL)

Uses data from an evaluation of an alternative teacher certification program to illustrate the value and use of multilevel models to examine site-to-site outcome differences data from multisite evaluations, showing how a traditional analysis approach can overlook effective interventions and miss important links between program implementation and…

Program-theory approaches to evaluation have gained acceptability over the past 25 years as a means for examining conditions for implementation that are associated with better outcomes and developing detailed program theory. They have also gained confusion, as witnessed in the review of recent studies in this article. (Author/SLD)