Designed to provide a scale for assessing the quality of short expository essays, this material includes a group of six expository essays about 250-300 words in length arranged in order of quality. Each essay is followed by critical comments and a general discussion of the characteristics of essays at that level of quality. No validity or…

A model is proposed for gathering information about staff development efforts conducted by schools of education. The model can be used to evaluate staff development undertakings, report significant data, and help other institutions design comparable programs. (PP)

Analysis of the clinical interview procedure as employed in psychological research on mathematical thinking is presented. It is noted that there are three clinical methods, each designed for a different research purpose. (MP)

This paper defines the student case study approach to evaluation, discusses its strengths and weaknesses as a component in a program evaluation design, and lists the specific steps needed to accomplish it. Its use in the evaluation of Experience-Based Career Education is described. (SJL)

This paper discusses the research methodology of the study "Alternative Patterns for Strengthening Community Service Programs" which examined programs in a large number of institutions of higher education. The first and major part of the paper deals with the use of case studies in generating data and communicating knowledge and feelings.…

Designed to assess the quality of pieces of creative writing in the intermediate and junior high grades, the Sager Writing Scale (SWS) is intended for use by both students and teachers or by researchers. The SWS contains four scales with four ratings possible in the areas of vocabulary, elaboration, organization, and structure. Validity for the…

Outlines techniques of utilizing interlibrary loan (ILL) statistics to establish productivity and staffing patterns to evaluate library services and reveal staffing needs. This article also presents results from an ILL workload and staffing study in Alabama academic libraries. Results are displayed in table form. (JMV)

Suggests the bachelor's paper as an alternative to testing for sociology majors. Explains that the paper enables the student to use the discipline's theoretical and methodological tools to address an important topic. Explores the advantages and disadvantages of the paper. Suggests that the assignment promotes assessment both of the student and the…

To evaluate the quality of written compositions, researchers at Educational Testing Service developed the Composition Evaluation Scales (CES), after factor-analytic studies of the reasons teachers gave for their judgments of compositions. This is a set of eight scales: ideas, organization, wording, flavor, usage, punctuation, spelling, and…

The problem of the comparability of change scores is investigated. Change quotients and residual change scores are evaluated as alternative approaches and methods for estimating the true change and true score residual, the reliability of change scores and residuals, and procedures for constructing confidence intervals for residuals are explored.…

The choice of methods is part of the overall evaluation design process. The process consists of the following steps: (1) analyzing the problem context; (2) asking a few general questions; (3) selecting the methods (strategies) to use; and (4) selecting the specific techniques (tactics) to use. To operate successfully the evaluator needs to know…

Describes a study to develop a communications research technique that can produce information suitable for analysis about the management of public institutions, particularly in higher education, from readily available sources, in this case, newspapers. (JMF)

The impact of NCHEMS (National Center for Higher Education Management Systems) products upon planning and management tasks is examined in this study performed at a sample of 126 institutions. The institutions have used one or more of the following NCHEMS products: Program Classification of Structure (PCS); Resource Requirements Prediction Model…

An overall look is taken at the cloze research method as a new tool for measuring readability. The construction of a cloze readability test is described as well as several studies made on the reliability and validity of such tests. Included also are some methodological considerations to be kept in mind when constructing a cloze test. Data is…

The extent of error likely to occur with each of several approximations for the standard deviation, internal consistency reliability, and the standard error of measurement is analyzed. Approximations were compared with exact statistics obtained on 85 different classroom tests constructed and administered by professors in a variety of fields. Means…