Contextual changes in society in Finland, as elsewhere, have caused new demands for evaluation. This is particularly apparent in light of curriculum developments in compulsory education in Finland. The use of evaluations and the importance of planning evaluation for the benefit of the user are discussed. Professional, consumerist, and public…

This paper reports on the evaluation of some elements of a multicomponent program involving more than 20 agencies aimed at improving accessibility of health and social services for the homeless. The case study approach shows how the organizational context, stakeholder characteristics, and methodological features can affect evaluations. (SLD)

The "Higher Education Reconciliation Act of 2005" created two new grant programs for undergraduates: the Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG) program and National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (National SMART) Grant program. The ACG program is intended to encourage students to take challenging courses in high school and thus…

Qualitative evaluation and quantitative evaluation are discussed, examining how the perspective of each can and should create a critical debate that encourages inquiry instead of hostility. To achieve the major goal of linking evaluation information to the organization's culture, the evaluator needs to use multiple methods in a responsive,…

The Down East Partnership for Children (DEPC) was established in 1993 to bring together health, education, and social service agencies to address the needs of children and families in two eastern North Carolina counties. As the staff grew from 2 to 20 and communication within and outside the Partnership became more complex, an analysis of internal…

Deliberately involving urban education stakeholders in the Cities-in-Schools evaluation study improved the utility of the findings for formative evaluation stakeholders but not for summative evaluation stakeholders. (Author/PN)

The evaluation of a science education project for teachers in Durban (South Africa) illustrates some problems inherent in the application of the fourth-generation evaluation approach of Guba and Lincoln. One of the strongest concerns is that full participation by stakeholders may be an unrealistic assumption. (SLD)

Partial results of an evaluation of an alternative criminal-sentencing program indicate considerable disagreement among stakeholders over perceived program effectiveness. It is argued that these disagreements are not isolated events but are likely to be inherent in any program with the potential to change established systems within a complex…

This article promotes the use of contextual constructionism in evaluation research. The call for truth in sentencing in Tennessee (and across the country) is used to illustrate the conflict among stakeholders that arises from program evaluation and to show how their multiple realities make a contextual constructionist approach pertinent. (SLD)

Nine evaluations of projects of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) are described. Most are formative in nature, designed to improve the programs targeted and to increase stakeholder participation. Almost all were conducted in Africa. The descriptions of research methodology have many implications for educational evaluation. (SLD)

Schools and districts have functioned for too long on the premise that they have a clear understanding of the quality of their graduates. Traditional methods for measuring the effectiveness of education relied too heavily on standardized test scores. The production of annual school and district profiles is an ongoing commitment in the Grande…

The intent of this paper is to illustrate the use of stakeholder information in evaluating a school program. The material presented is part of a comprehensive formative evaluation of a crisis intervention program operated by a suburban school district situated near a large industrial city in the Midwest. The crisis intervention program provided…

This exploration of the implementation of a new career path for teachers in Australia, the Advanced Skills Teacher classification, shows conflicts between the industrial relations arena and teaching standards and performance assessments based on quality of teaching practice. Developing such career paths requires stable professional bodies that…

A new outcome-oriented, utilization-focused approach to program evaluation is introduced. The new framework encourages stakeholders to consider academic dissemination, product development, and implementation as three primary outcomes when evaluating educational and clinical approaches. Secondary outcomes focus on education, clinical service, and…

The efforts of a committee to involve stakeholders, faculty in a department of nursing, in a program evaluation for accreditation, are described. Experiences over a five-year period are described, with an emphasis on strategies that fostered success. Implications for other educational evaluations are reviewed. (SLD)