This brochure describes the mission of National Assessment, the highlights of recent findings, and the procedures used in gathering the data. It also outlines how the project is administered and governed and projects a framework for the development of upcoming assessments. The booklet includes a number of charts and graphs depicting achievement…

Federal statistics form the foundation and are the standard for private statistics. Reliable and accurate statistics are increasingly used in complex models of the economy and society that have become important tools for management of large business concerns and for policy planning in governmental bodies. Reductions in government funding threaten…

This guidebook aims to provide clear, non-technical descriptions of procedures for evaluating the effectiveness of local gifted education programs in Virginia. The procedures were developed with both external and internal evaluations in mind. The evaluation process is described in four phases: planning, collecting the data, interpreting the data…

The 1982 and 1985 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA) produced a national audience profile for classical ballet and explored factors that predispose participation in this art form. This monograph analyzed data from these surveys in terms of: (1) audience size and composition for live ballet performances; (2) television's role in…

Hypothesis generation and testing is outlined as an additional domain for program evaluators. Program evaluation involves a thorough analysis of the processes that contribute to change (or a lack of change) among program recipients. This process of change is analyzed in two ways: (1) treating programs as naturally occurring field studies; and (2)…

Initiated by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), this project analyzed the public's desire to attend performing arts events and art museums and also reviewed barriers to such attendance. Goals of the study were to identify the characteristics of persons who stated: (1) a desire to increase their attendance at arts events; and (2) different…

To simplify data from a large survey, it is desirable to classify subjects according to their attitudes toward certain issues, as measured by questions in the survey. Responses to 12 questions were identified as indicative of attitudes toward deschooling education. These attitudes were explained by means of patterns exhibited within the responses…

The usefulness of the general Rasch model for multidimensional data, from the most simple formulations to the more complex versions of the model, is explored. Also investigated was whether the parameters of the models could be readily interpreted. Models investigated included: (1) the vector model; (2) the product term model; (3) the vector and…

The issues and some proposed solutions regarding Follow Through (FT) site variability are examined with a review of developments in FT evaluation. The role of adjusted site means with differences within sponsors and between sponsors and background characteristics is discussed to determine whether adjusted means are the preferred measures of model…

The activities of the Multilevel Analysis Project of the Center for the Study of Evaluation from February 1 to June 1, 1978 are summarized. Twelve project staff activities are listed, including papers on alternative analytical models for identifying educational effects, conference presentations, and grant proposals. A report on empirical…

Data from 86 Early Childhood Education (ECE) projects in Oregon were analyzed using methods prescribed by the Value Added model for ECE evaluation. The extent to which appropriate model implementation procedures were followed is unknown. Thus, the results represent an empirical account of the model's estimates of project impact, rather than a…

When different individuals operating in different contexts implement similar innovations, they approach the various parts of the innovation in different ways. When assessed according to the research procedures used to study innovation implementation at the Research and Development Center for Teacher Education at the University of Texas at Austin,…

Based on statistical data submitted by almost 3,000 academic libraries as part of the 1978-1979 Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS), this report develops a composite profile of an academic research library. Use of cluster analysis of library characteristics to find institutions that were quantitatively similar to one another…

The Research on the Improvement Process (RIP) Program of the Research and Development Center for Teacher Education has made the investigation of the change process in high schools their primary research priority for the 1980s. In this paper, the high school research endeavors of the RIP program are described, with special attention being given to…

The CADET Project Modification computer analysis, and both hard copy map-like images and computer tapes are available to the public. A mainframe computer program that permits an Apple microcomputer user to select a particular 40 by 40 pixel sub-scene from a Landsat computer compatible tape and download it to Apple computer diskette via telephone…