In addition to the difficult task of identifying teaching methods that ensure student learning, the American educational system is facing significant challenges. Schools are struggling to maintain standards for high-quality teaching while trying to address the learning needs of students with Limited English Proficiency (LEP). The same struggle is…

Although the need for evaluation of prevention programs is clear, the implementation of evaluation, particularly for large, complex projects with multiple investigators, poses numerous challenges. Program evaluators in these circumstances do not have the same degree of control as, say, experimental psychologists and must find ways to obtain data…

District and school administrators are challenged to provide learning environments that help students attain and surpass set levels of academic and social learning. In times of economic strife, discussions often turn to the efficient use of financial and human resources to maximize school districts' capacity to fulfill those objectives. Most…

Despite the best of intentions, qualitative researchers can be faced, in some circumstances, with having to make meaning from thin, or less than optimal, data. Using a real study as context, the authors describe the ways that they made sense of their thin data on teachers' perceptions of a large-scale evaluation instrument. They propose a…

The Comparing Options in Secondary Mathematics: Investigating Curriculum (COSMIC) project is a longitudinal study of student learning from two types of mathematics curricula: integrated and subject-specific. Previous large-scale research studies such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) indicate that numerous variables are…

How can indigenous evaluators implement culturally competent models in First Nations communities while ensuring that government grant evaluation requirements are met? Through describing the challenges in one tribal community in the United States, this article will discuss how American Indian/Alaska Native substance abuse prevention programs are…

This final report describes a pilot program for the simultaneous appraisal and description of concurrent television newsfilm from the holdings (dating from 1955 to 1972) of three Madison, Wisconsin television stations. The sections of the report are: (1) Project Background and History; (2) Problems of Estimating; (3) Evaluation of the Physical…

The issue of evaluation in adult literacy is addressed in this paper. It is assumed that evaluation is a necessary and vital function in an adult literacy program because it helps administrators understand their efforts, increases information available about a program's functioning, builds an image, and facilitates the discovery of information on…

Artificial criteria included in speech evaluation forms in the basic communication classroom to assess students' communication competencies fail to reflect what is known about communication as a transaction and about communication competence. Communication competence is most commonly defined from the action perspective which focuses on the…

This paper examines problems associated with psychiatric diagnoses. In the early 1960s, Karl Menninger and others prepared a treatise on the problems with psychiatric diagnosis, both from the standpoint of inherent weaknesses in the system and from an awareness of professional abuse of the system. The paper concentrates on three aspects of…

This paper explores the impact of the Texas Teacher Appraisal System (TTAS) through an analysis of interviews with 24 high school English teachers. The first part of the paper discusses the development of the TTAS and the second section describes the study. The teachers were asked if and how the TTAS had affected their teaching performance, what…

The development of readability formulas for the evaluation of foreign language texts began with research in the United States on reading materials used in second language learning and has extended to many other countries first by adaptation of formulas intended for English language texts and then by original investigation. There exist now many…

Suicide assessment and prediction are important functions performed by psychiatrists. Although the specificity and sensitivity of assessment instruments are poor, trainees are instructed to become proficient in their application. The occurrence of suicides during training confronts trainees with personal and professional limitations. The charts of…

The ability of individuals to make accurate judgments about others is examined and literature on this subject is reviewed. A wide variety of situational factors affects the appraisal of performance. It is generally accepted that the purpose of the appraisal influences the accuracy of the appraiser. The instrumentation, or tools, available to the…

It has been two years since the Evaluation Research Society (ERS) published its Standards for Program Evaluation. The standards have influenced professional activities, such as panel discussions, and have been useful in training evaluators. However, the question arises as to whether the standards have been consulted by practicing evaluators or…