The ability to evaluate and accurately articulate the outcomes associated with leadership development programs is critical to their continued financial and administrative support. With calls for outcome-based accountability, the need for rigorous evaluation is particularly relevant for those programs administered through the Cooperative Extension…

In 2016, MENTOR and its affiliates led the largest data collection effort in almost 20 years to examine the prevalence and practices of youth mentoring programs across America. The effort had had three major goals: (1) Better understand the structure, services, and challenges of mentoring programs so that MENTOR and its affiliates could provide…

Background: Many adolescents are referred to Child Protective Services for possible maltreatment every year, but not much is known about their organized and unstructured activity participation. Objective: The purposes of this study are to provide a description of organized and unstructured activity participation for adolescents who were possible…

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Grand Challenges provides the theme for this NSFfunded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) site. Research topics, with their broad societal impact, allow undergraduate students from multiple engineering disciplines and computer science to work together on exciting and critical problems. The…

Classroom quality is critical for young children's learning, yet evidence suggests that the quality of early care and education (ECE) classrooms varies widely, even within federally administered Head Start. This study uses data from the nationally representative Head Start Impact Study to examine variation in children's access to formal and…

Radical acceleration from middle school to university is an unusual option in the United States. The Early Entrance Program and the University of Washington (UW) Academy for Young Scholars housed in the Halbert and Nancy Robinson Center for Young Scholars are two of only 21 early university entrance programs offered in the United States. Due to…

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of the pilot program aimed at developing effective school leadership on Kuwaiti principals' effectiveness as perceived by teachers in three main domains: organizational development, organizational environment, and instructional leadership. Schools were chosen to participate in the pilot program…

The high demand for scientists and engineers in the workforce means that there is a continuing need for more strategies to increase student completion in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors. The challenge lies in finding and enacting effective strategies to increase students' completion of STEM degrees and in recruiting…

The purpose of the study reported here was to evaluate the impact of Leadership Institute, a program designed to strengthen leadership capacity through developing individuals' emotional intelligence (EQ). A pre-and posttest approach was used to collect data from two workshops with identical EQ content, program structure, and evaluation.…

Strong economic growth through much of the period since 2000 and demographic pressures such as workforce aging, have contributed to a robust demand for skilled tradespeople. Despite a decline following the economic recession in 2008 and 2009, new registrations in apprenticeship programs have increased nearly 200% since the 1990s. Apprenticeship…

The landscape of early learning and out-of-school-time programs in the City of Santa Monica is complex, with numerous providers and funding streams. This complexity reflects its evolution in response to changes in federal, state, and local priorities and initiatives. Future shifts in funding levels, program auspices, and other features are likely.…

Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) is a well-documented, valuable, and integral part of agricultural education programs (Bryant, 2003; Cheek, Arrington, Carter, & Randall, 1994; Deyoe, 1953; Dyer & Osborne, 1996; Moore, 1988; Roberts & Harlin, 2007). Cole and Connell (1993) found that there was little research regarding the…

Evaluation of instructional personnel is standard procedure in our Pre-K-12 public schools, and its purpose is to document educator effectiveness. With Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind waivers, states are required to implement performance-based evaluations that demonstrate student academic progress. This three-year study describes the…

This applied dissertation was a program evaluation study, which was conducted to assess the educational outcomes of the adult learners compared to the traditional learners, as well as the satisfaction with learning while enrolled in the program. The level of satisfaction of all graduates was assessed for comparison between the traditional learners…

City Year is a learning organization committed to the rigorous evaluation of its "Whole School Whole Child" model, which trains and deploys teams of AmeriCorps members to low-performing, urban schools to empower more students to reach their full potential. A third-party study by Policy Studies Associates (PSA) examined the impact of…