The Identifying School Behavior Problems program is a computer based system for developing and implementing individualized education plans for the social-emotional skills area. Designed for use with troubled children, the program systematically leads the teacher through processes of assessment, instruction, and recordkeeping using a menu system of…

Four kinds of measures of excellence are currently used in evaluating vocational education: components and process, occupational impact, equity, and individual student development. None of them displays the kind of precision that characterizes measures in the physical sciences. Furthermore, the nature of the enterprise to which these measures must…

Should an educational evaluator be trained as a content specialist, an evaluation specialist, or some combination of the two? A content specialist has demonstratable expertise in the field of study being evaluated, but not training in evaluation methods; the evaluation specialist has expertise in evaluation methods but may know little about the…

This report discusses five issue areas in which it is believed substantial improvements in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) might be achieved. The unifying themes among these issues are to increase the visibility of NAEP, its relevance to policymakers, and its utility to state and local agencies. The first of five substantive…

A follow-up study of high school students who had taken a law-related education (LRE) course as junior high students showed that the LRE course continued to have a positive effect on the students' behavior. In the original study, ninth-graders taking LRE courses were compared with ninth-graders enrolled in conventional civics courses. At the…

The primary role of education is the production of positive changes in the learner. Teachers make decisions regarding effective experiences conducive to helping students change their behaviors. Evaluation provides evidence to help teachers and students attain desired goals of instruction and the objectives of education. Four types of evaluation…

Formative and summative evaluations in education are compared, and appropriate uses of these methods in program evaluation are discussed. The main purpose of formative evaluation is to determine a level of mastery of a learning task, along with discovering any part of the task that was not mastered. In other words, formative evaluation focuses the…

The Joint Council on Economic Education (JCEE) contracted for the development of this research and evaluation agenda (or blueprint) for its Developmental Economic Education Program (DEEP). DEEP involves local school systems in a formal commitment to develop systematic programs in economic education curriculum using academically sound materials and…

This program quality review instrument was designed for use in determining the quality of California's family day care programs in terms of seven functional components. These components included: (1) philosophy, goals, and objectives; (2) administration; (3) identification of the child's and family's needs; (4) home environment; (5) parent…

This revised Program Quality Review Instrument focuses on the evaluation of seven functional components of center-based, preschool-age child development programs in California. The components are: (1) philosophy, goals, and objectives; (2) administration; (3) assessment of child and family; (4) developmental programming; (5) parent education and…

This document consists of an introduction, five sections, and a list of 12 references. The introduction explains why cost-benefit analysis is being applied to training in developing countries--even in those in which the expenditure for education has reached enormous proportions. The first section reviews the main providers and beneficiaries of…

This technical report, the final product of the deliberations of a panel charged with an external review of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), considers three broad issues: (1) the apparent lack of comparability between the findings of the 1984 and 1986 reading assessments (reading anomaly); (2) the accuracy of NAEP trend…

A closeup look is provided of a trend in the field of educational policy in the 1980's: the establishment of university-based centers that have a mission of providing state policymakers with nonpartisan, reliable data on education policy options. The development and characteristics of education policy centers are examined. The first section…

This issue of FEEDBACK, a newsletter produced by the the Austin Independent School District Office of Research and Evaluation (ORE), illustrates the accuracy, validity, and fairness of ORE reports. The independence of the reports is explained. Internal and external quality controls are used to ensure reliability and accuracy of the reports.…

This report is part of an overall regional needs assessment effort undertaken by Research by Better schools and it summarizes test results from state education agencies in the District of Columbia, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Performance trends over the past several years were analyzed. Major findings indicate that: (1)…