Author discusses accountability controversy concerning effectiveness of social services. Turem's mechanistic and Gruber's organic models of accountability are compared and an alternate open system model of organization is offered which combines positive aspects of Turem's and Gruber's models as well as adds other constructive elements to them. (SE)

A literature review on evaluation and assessment of undergraduate education is presented as part of the final report of the Arizona Board of Regents' Task Force on Excellence, Efficiency and Competitiveness. It is designed to provide an overview of certain evaluation frameworks that have been used in higher education, present some approaches used…

The work content of eight midwestern college and university presidents is defined and described through direct observation of daily activities. This was done as a critical first step in a line of research which can eventually propose effective presidential work behaviors. Besides discovering how time is used, the study finds that due to the volume…

This paper introduces and explores new counterpressures in educational governance, the central theme of this symposium. Drawing on research in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, but giving particular attention to Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Canada, and the United States, this paper provides an…

There are three valuable types of computer software needed by the professional researcher--word processing, spreadsheet, and database management. In general, these packages are required for the effective operation of offices; however, researchers may have special needs which can only be met with more specialized software. Recently, word processing…

The familiarity and use of direct and frequent measurement in special education was examined using three sample groups of teachers serving learning disabled students. Although most teachers were shown to be familiar with direct and frequent measurement strategies, relatively few were found to use them, in the belief that the repeated measures were…

With today's relatively high interest rates, inflationary trend, and declining public support to higher education, cash management programs are of interest to the academic business officer as well as the commercial businessman. Four areas in which the management of cash can be improved are: (1) speeding collections of cash; (2) delaying…

The traditional reliability coefficient and standard error of measurement are not adequate measures of reliability for tests used to make pass/fail decisions. Answering the important reliability questions requires estimation of the joint distribution of true and observed scores. Lord's "Method 20" estimates this distribution without the…

This publication describes some of the work of the UNESCO Division of Statistics on Education on the evaluation of the internal efficiency of educational systems that followed from the 1970 International Conference on Education. The first section contains a brief summary of the conclusions of the "Expert Meeting on the Evaluation of Internal…

This paper describes a management system for secondary vocational education programs that is based on a cost-effectiveness analysis model. The model described was developed specifically for use in planning and evaluating secondary school vocational programs, although it might be applied to other educational programs as well. The model generates…

The purpose of this article is to identify, sequence, define, and clarify a limited number of key economic concepts useful to elementary and secondary social studies teachers for analyzing a broad spectrum of personal and socioeconomic issues. (Author/ND)

The operations of an institution can be viewed from three perspectives: (1) the "actual operating measurement" such as income and expenditures of a cost center at a point in time; (2) the "criterion" which reflects the established policy for a time period; and (3) the "efficiency level" wherein a balance between input and output is defined.…

Although efficiency in education has been a long-standing concern, school districts are not rationally or scientifically managed or run in a businesslike manner. Yet this lack of efficiency may not be the result of poor management by school district administrators. School district managers are forced to respond quickly to an ever-changing melange…

In contrast to the usual approach in computer-based reference services, which is to go into a specific data base to retrieve citations to material on a specific, narrowly-defined topic, this report demonstrates how such services could be useful in a broad approach to a complex subject, using an investigation of trends in the world aluminum…

This paper presents a view of the principalship as it is subjectively perceived by the principal. The role is constrained by a number of factors. One of these is the principal's private office that both signifies and produces the principal's unique status and position. One of the principal's primary obligations is to maintain the social structure…