In this collection, evaluation theorists and practitioners consider evaluator role and identity in evaluation theory, practice, and society. The chapters are: (1) "Three Frameworks for Considering Evaluator Role" (Jean A. King and Laurie Stevahn); (2) "Toward Better Understanding of Alternative Evaluator Roles" (Melvin M. Mark); (3) "Making (More)…

Recommends that when repeated-measures Latin-square designs are used to counterbalance treatments across a procedural variable or to reduce the number of treatment combinations given to each participant, effects be analyzed statistically, and that in all uses, researchers consider alternative interpretations of the variance associated with the…

Discusses ethical challenges faced by evaluators, especially those who have gotten into problems while conducting the evaluation. Introduces the other articles in this theme section. (SLD)

Explores why summative, or high-stakes, assessment in higher education is in disarray, and why formative assessment therefore needs attention, along with the nature of curriculum in higher education. (EV)

Notes that, very early in program planning, budgets are estimated for major program components, including evaluation. Proposes heuristic for establishing reasonable evaluation estimates in initial planning. Describes logical sources of information from which to construct such a heuristic. Recommends that, for typical programs and projects, initial…

Presents dialog among David Lester, author of first critical survey of death anxiety measures, developer of scales, and researcher about suicide and fear of death; Donald Templer, Death Anxiety Scale (DAS) creator; and journal editor. Lester and Templer discuss origins, uses, results, limitations, and future of death anxiety scales and research on…

Reflects on an evaluation that aspired to be inclusive but generally failed to provide a backdrop for a discussion of inclusive evaluation. Identifies issues of absence of significant stakeholders, making of values by method, and the limited authority of the evaluation. Shows how easily deliberative intentions are distorted. (SLD)

Challenges the assumption that evaluation should aim for fostering deliberative democracy. A modest effort by an evaluator to contribute to deliberative democracy is defensible, but vigorous political advocacy violates social expectation. (Author/SLD)

Whether there can be professional reasons for turning down an evaluation contract is explored. Considering how evaluations can promote either guild maintenance interests or societal improvement interests illuminates several dilemmas in the proper conduct of evaluation and suggests the need for greater explicit attention to what it means for the…

Distance Education has globally become one of the important solutions for increasing admission into the universities, decongesting campuses and efficient utilization of time and space. To ensure the sustainability of the programmes' noble objectives calls for periodic re-evaluation of its modus operandi including the assessment of the perception…

Traditionally the measures used to evaluate the impact of an educational programme on student outcomes and the extent to which students change is a comparison of the student's pre-test scores with his/her post-test scores. However, this method of evaluating change may be problematic due to the confounding factor of response shift bias when student…

Quality assurance in instructional development demands an exhaustive formative evaluation effort and applied testing. Unfortunately, this process is expensive and requires large numbers of user testers with characteristics similar to the intended audience. This article presents a procedure for increasing the efficiency of quality assurance efforts…

Over the last 50 years the process of producing transcripts of all kinds of interactions has become an important practice for researchers in a wide range of disciplines. Only rarely, however, has transcription been analyzed as a cultural practice. It is here argued that it is precisely the lack of understanding of what is involved in transcribing…

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…