The conceptualization and empirical assessment of service quality in juvenile justice remains limited. There are few reports on programmatic attempts to assess satisfaction in juvenile justice programs or attempts to include what constitutes quality of service from multiple customer perspectives. This article describes a potential model, the Gap…

Meeting the needs of mathematically talented elementary students has always been a real challenge due to the lack of appropriate curricular resources and training for teachers. Mathematics is not generally a strength area for elementary or gifted/talented teachers; rather, their talents and interests often lie in the language arts realm. This is…

Drug treatment is one of the critical components of drug court programming, yet it has not been thoroughly studied in the drug court literature. Very little is understood about the nature of drug treatment services provided in the drug court setting. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of selected treatment variables on drug court…

In this case study of the impact of professional development (PD) activities in music on staff at a childcare centre, the researcher was also the provider of PD. The needs of the staff and their preferred mode of PD delivery were negotiated with the researcher, resulting in a number of sessions where new resources and teaching ideas were modelled…

In order to evaluate the effects of an integrated curriculum on the learning of popular music, the Sting Curriculum was designed for senior secondary students of mixed ability. This nine-week program was presented to a sample of students aged between 16 and 18 years in urban Sydney (Australia). This article draws on some of the results from this…

The article reports on research conducted in Zimbabwe's 11 universities between 2001 and 2003. The research was aimed at finding how vice chancellors and internal marketers perceived the marketing concept and its organization within the universities including the extent to which prospective university customers considered the arrangements for…

The study of school choice for special education students brings together several important pieces of legislation which are separately the focus of high interest. This paper reviews the features of the three major special education bills (the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, section 504 of the Rehabilitation Acts, the Americans with…

Many organized out-of-school-time (OST) activities provide enriching opportunities for children to interact with peers, build cognitive skills, develop relationships with mentors, and explore a variety of talents and leisure pursuits. A growing set of findings suggests that youth participation in OST activities is associated with academic…

In recent years, a major shift in thinking has occurred among psychologists, educators, youth workers, and policymakers interested in adolescent development. The old focus on pathology, delinquency, and problem prevention has begun to be supplemented by a new interest in health, resilience, and opportunity development. In an extensive review of…

One of the author's first assessment experiences at California State University, Sacramento, began when she was assigned to teach a graduate-level program evaluation research course in the Division of Criminal Justice. The chair of the assessment committee and the division chair approached her with the idea of conducting an assessment of the…

This article discusses the value and feasibility of carrying out evaluation research on teacher development and uses as points of reference the author's experiences in two countries, Sri Lanka and Mexico. In Sri Lanka, an evaluation study was designed to understand the effectiveness and costs of teacher development at the elementary level linking…

The present study examines the effect of participation of first-year university students in a full-year peer mentoring program as well as individual differences in motivation in relation to outcome measures of retention and achievement. A sample of 983 first year students completed the Academic Motivation Inventory (Tremblay, 1998) and agreed to…

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of a two-way immersion elementary school program on academic achievement at the end of the elementary school and the end of the first year of junior high school. Longitudinal high stakes test data in reading, writing, and mathematics were collected on native English speakers and native Spanish…

Contemporary research on teaching indicates that teachers are powerful contributors to students' academic achievement, though the set and interrelationships of characteristics that make for high-quality and effective teaching have yet to be satisfactorily determined. Nevertheless, on the basis of the extant research and a vision of exemplary…

One of the most significant societal changes over the past few decades has been the growing number of women in the paid work force. As a direct result of this sociological phenomenon, childcare centres have been providing long day care for vastly increasing numbers of very young children. The speed of this change has created a societal dilemma…