This book presents a compilation of 28 issues of the newsletter, "How To Evaluate Education Programs" from the first one published in September 1977 through the issue of December 1979 on the topic of evaluating educational programs. The subject is covered in the following chapters: (1) How to Choose a Test; (2) How to Rate and Compare…

Application review is the most important part of the Department of Education's funding process and is designed to ensure that projects are worthwhile and that awards are fair and impartial. The critical step in application review is competitive, objective evaluation by reviewers. This workbook was developed by the Department of Education to…

Guidelines are given for program testing and verification to ensure quality software for the programmer working alone in a computing environment with limited resources. The emphasis is on verification as an integral part of the software development. Guidance includes developing and planning testing as well as the application of other verification…

A model for predicting student performance on introductory programming modules is presented. The model uses attributes identified in a study carried out at four third-level institutions in the Republic of Ireland. Four instruments were used to collect the data and over 25 attributes were examined. A data reduction technique was applied and a…

In this article we describe how the RADIO process enabled EPiTs to negotiate research with an EPS around its desire to evaluate and develop its consultation work with schools. Findings of the evaluation and their implications for the Service are described and the potential of RADIO as a tool for providing external research support from HEIs for…

The Joint Dissemination Review Panel (JDRP) examines educational interventions and determines their effectiveness. This study's purpose was to assess this review process and identify common characteristics of submittals and ways in which approvals and rejections differed. A locally-developed instrument which collected data on the intervention's…

A shift in the priorities set down in the Teacher Corps' rules increases the amount of time and attention paid to local projects rather than to large programs. Three Teacher Corps task forces convened to study the implications of the new rules and the realities of local project operation. The reports of the task forces are contained in this…

This review of a previous article (TM 503 836), concludes that: (1) the evaluation methodology was straightforward; (2) simpler data analysis would have yielded the same conclusions; and (3) exclusion of many experimental schools from data analysis and use of post hoc matching and covariance produced misleading results. (CP)

This letter reports on a research study in which five students (initially identified as severely mentally retarded and/or autistic) were tested with and without the use of facilitated communication while facilitators were prevented from hearing the test questions. Positive results for four of the students raise issues about accurate educational…

This paper introduces the Website Acceptability Tiered Checklist (WATCH), a preliminary version of a multi-trait scale that could be used by instructors and students to assess the quality of websites chosen as source materials in students' research papers in a Humanities program. The scale includes bands for assessing: (i) the authority and…

In order to determine how much objective evidence exists regarding the effectiveness of career education programs in U.S. schools, American Institutes for Research in Behavioral Sciences (AIR) conducted a comprehensive, national search for well-evaluated activities. The initial nominations of 394 programs were received from state career education…

An independent statewide study of 4,735 elementary schools, conducted after three years of the Early Childhood Education Program (ECE) in California, indicates that ECE schools have lower reading scores in grades 2 and 3 when compared to non-ECE schools. Five potential causes for this discrepancy are discussed. (CP)

ifferent evaluation models were applied to data from a high school career education program to investigate problems in statistical conclusion validity and program effectiveness judgments. If potential threats to internal validity are analyzed and protection strategies are developed, more confidence in unplanned ex post facto design using a…

Multiple-choice testing (MCT) has several advantages which are becoming more relevant in the current financial climate. In particular, they can be machine marked. As an objective testing method it is particularly relevant to engineering and other factual courses, but MCTs are not widely used in engineering because students can benefit from…

Intended for policymakers, administrators, and others involved in determining how the efficiency and effectiveness of technical and further education (TAFE) should be measured, this monograph contains the following sections: (1) "Introduction," including a explanation of the origins of the push for performance indicators and the response…