This paper provides advice to college and university administrators on issues and problems associated with the assessment and documentation of institutional effectiveness, in light of the current Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) criteria for institutional self-evaluation. Administrators need to: (1) get the attention of…

In response to stipulations in the 1991-1993 collective bargaining agreement between the Maine Technical College System and the Maine Teachers Association Faculty Unit, a committee was formed at Northern Maine Technical College (NMTC) to review and refine the faculty evaluation process. To assess faculty perceptions of the current evaluation…

This paper suggests that there are ways to organize the literature, both within music and in related fields of study, so that the interested professional can engage in an active organized study of creative thinking in music. There are also ways of defining musical behaviors that are indicative of creative thinking in children as well as adults.…

Effective leadership is more than the ability to demonstrate specific skills. The validity of early effective principal and leadership trait research has been questioned by recent studies. School improvement formulas that are narrowly focused on basic skills could easily lead to more demanding treatment of students. Recent studies show that…

Challenges faced in the evaluation of programs for the disabled are discussed, focusing on values orientation, key stakeholders, program structure, and measurement issues. Workers in the field are presently witnessing a fundamental change in the philosophy that underlies programs for persons with disabilities. Evaluators must be sensitive to the…

This document consists of the four issues of the "IACD Quarterly" published in 1992. Articles in this volume include: (1) "A Multicultural Approach to Assertiveness Training" (Wilma Henry and Mary Ann Jones); (2) "Life-Skills: Research and Application" (Michael Illovsky); (3) "'A Model for Grief Counseling:…

Assessment of preschoolers with handicaps presents a challenge to assessment personnel due to the children's unwillingness to separate from their parents, non-compliant behaviors, short attention spans, limited expressive language, and other problems. Planning and scheduling considerations include scheduling assessments when the child is…

Although hundreds of state and local organizations provide homelessness prevention assistance, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) could not determine the effectiveness of this assistance because few assistance providers have the resources available to collect the client follow-up data needed for evaluation. Homelessness prevention programs,…

A synthesis of the report, "The Current State of Assessment in Literature," (produced by the Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature), this digest discusses methods of evaluating students' knowledge of literature. The digest argues that, by and large, the tests that now exist in the United States do not live up to the…

Apprehension about evaluating the use of computers in schools can be attributed to a variety of reasons, including the claim that evaluation discourages innovation and discovery. Powerful reasons, however, make evaluation at both regional and national levels desirable. By conceiving of evaluation as a formative, on-going process rather than as a…

Program impact methodology--usually referred to as evaluation research--is described as it is developing in the United States. Several problems face the field of evaluation research. First, those issues grouped as "meta-scientific" include: (1) the distinction between qualitative and quantitative studies; (2) the separation of implementation and…

States are required by the Medicaid law to identify and investigate cases of suspected Medicaid abuse by reviewing recipients' and providers' use of Medicaid services. The General Accounting Office (GAO) conducted an assessment of programs to control recipient abuse in six states and to control provider abuse in four states to determine whether…

This discussion of the use of word processing for instruction in developmental writing classes focuses on a study at York College that used IBM PCs and Bank Street Writer software. Problems encountered, including evaluation, assessment, and revising the concept of writing processes, are described. (Author/LRW)

The value and limitations of conceptualizing evaluation as a decision-oriented research and appraisal activity is discussed. The decisional contexts of evaluation projects is examined in terms of a comparison between two models of organization decision making. Certain remedies for problems arising from attempts to enhance decisional relevance of…

Addresses the problem of how academic value can be determined. Reviews several sample situations involving judgments of the merits of teachers, graduate assistants, and undergraduate writers. Proposes a system of "value-sorting," which requires that competing entities be measured in relationship to each other rather than against some abstract…