Discusses the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) research concerning the identification of indicators of service efforts and service accomplishments. The GASB has proposed that financial reports should not only be useful in assessing accountability, but they should also assist in making economic, social, and political decisions. (six…

Argues that the return-to-scale concept is important in explaining to more advanced students how production structures underlie costs. Reviews Christopher Ross Bell's graphical analysis, contending that its argument suggests a variable-returns-to-scale function rather than one exhibiting decreasing returns to scale. Explores classic views and the…

Explains what educational indicators are and what indicator systems accomplish. Summarizes major educational indicator initiative. Focuses on indicator strategies in California. Discusses several key issues related to indicator development and use. Outlines alternative strategies for making sense of educational indicators. (JS)

The relationship of fiscal effort to eighth-grade achievement on international assessments was compared among U.S. states, for U.S. states versus foreign countries, and for the United States versus foreign countries. U.S. performance was as expected, given its relative fiscal effort, and several states were as efficient as top-performing foreign…

This report discusses the findings of a study that attempted to investigate the participation rates of students with disabilities in the Oregon statewide testing program. The study joined individual student data from the Oregon Statewide Assessment Program and the Oregon Special Education Child Count to examine participation rates. The report…

Implan (Impact Analysis for Planning) is a microcomputer-based system for constructing regional economic accounts and input-output tables. It is currently maintained by the U.S. Forest Service at the Fort Collins Computer Center (Colorado) with assistance from the University of Minnesota. It provides software capabilities and a data base for…

The study sought to identify clusters of variables potentially linked to departmental excellence in institutions of higher education, and to determine whether these clusters and combinations thereof could be used to generate rankings of programs which would be consistent with those based on reputation. It studied the interrelationship of…

The Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model, a conceptual model for measuring productivity and efficiency, is presented and applied in this report. First, the DEA model is described, and three of its properties that make it particularly useful are identified; i.e., it measures efficiency of units relative to each other rather than to absolute…

Evaluation within human service organizations is defined in terms of accepted evaluation criteria, with reasonable expectations shown and structured into a model of systematic evaluation practice. The evaluation criteria of program effort, performance, adequacy, efficiency and process mechanisms are discussed, along with measurement information…

Summaries are given of the formal presentations, seminar group discussions, and problem solving sessions of a Teacher Corps conference on professional improvement by means of inservice teacher education and improvement of individual school climates. Evaluation of the conference is presented in the form of the Context/Input/Process/Product (CIPP)…

This research report examines various teacher and student behaviors and their effects on academic achievement. Pupil achievement levels were assessed before and after observing and recording teacher and student behaviors occurring in the classroom. Correlational data was collected from these classroom observations and program evaluations. The…

This selective bibliography provides annotated references for 1,200 books and articles published between 1976 and 1978 which concern productivity--the relation between physical output and input. Publications deal with concepts and methods; measurement of levels and trends; the sources of productivity change (such as technology and research); the…

A model for planning and evaluating community education programs--Stufflebeam's context, input, process, product (CIPP) evaluation model--was described and field-tested with the community education programs in Lakewood, New Jersey. Community education was defined as a concern for everything that affects the well-being of all citizens within a…

TO TEST THE APPLICATION OF THE GENERAL SYSTEMS APPROACH IN CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT, A PROBLEM WAS PROPOSED IDENTIFYING THE PHENOMENA AND CONTINGENT VARIABLES OF THE CURRICULUM SYSTEM WITHIN THE INPUT-OUTPUT FRAMEWORK. WITH TEACHERS, SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS, AND GRADUATE STUDENTS OF EDUCATION AS VOLUNTEER PARTICIPANTS, TWO EXPERIMENTAL GROUPS GIVEN…

This third volume of the Comparative Systems Laboratory (CSL) Final Technical Report is a collection of relatively independent studies performed on CSL materials. Covered in this document are studies on: (1) properties of files, including a study of the growth rate of a dictionary of index terms as influenced by number of documents in the file and…