Suchergebnisse

In contrast to education reform efforts that target teachers & schools, merit-based financial aid for college increases the incentives for high school students & their families to directly affect the quality of education by investing more time & effort in schoolwork. Large-scale merit-based aid programs, such as Georgia's HOPE Scholarship, seek to improve education by encouraging students to meet higher standards, in this case by obtaining a 3.0 grade point average in high school & college. Since the HOPE program began in 1993, the number of high school graduates qualifying for the aid has steadily increased to more than 38,000 graduates in the class of 1998, or 59.5 percent of the graduating class. At the same time, the relationship between grades & achievement has remained consistent or, in some cases, improved since HOPE began. In fact, African-American males & females with a 3.1 high school core course grade point average have increased their average Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) scores by more than 20 points. This indicates that merit-based aid has improved the quality of K-12 education in Georgia & reduced racial performance disparities by motivating students & their families to commit greater effort to schooling. 4 Tables, 4 Figures, 39 References. [Copyright 2002 John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.]

AbstractRigorous information on the implementation and effectiveness of the Da Vinci Model would be produced by the evaluation proposed in this chapter.

What we expect from public programs determines how the programs will be judged. This article presents a systematic values inquiry used to examine how much importance citizens and stakeholders attached to specific indicators in determining the success of a public preschool program. Four groups were surveyed: teachers, administrators, parents and the public. All four groups showed significant differences with respect to the importance of 29 possible indicators. The four groups agreed on the importance of high-quality services and about the lack of importance associated with economic benefits for families and certain educational outcomes for the preschoolers. Using confirmatory factor analysis, the opinions of the groups were shown to have similar underlying structures; however, teachers made greater distinctions between the groups of potential outcomes and the public distinguished between outcomes the least. Systematic values inquiry can be an important tool in designing evaluations that will produce information that can influence the judgments of citizens and stakeholders about a program's value.

AbstractThis chapter argues that pursuing use as the defining goal for evaluation can distort the allocation of evaluation resources and reduce the contributions of evaluation to broader social goals, such as social betterment.

AbstractFive themes illustrate different dimensions of the process of diffusing democratic deliberation into widespread use.

AbstractSurveys can be a powerful tool for engaging the public in evaluation.

Graphics are widely believed to be useful ways to communicate statistical information and stimulate data analysis. Yet we often use only the most simple graphics, bar and pie charts, or tables to present data, especially with the evaluation's audcences. Little research is available to assess the effectiveness of graphical displays with evaluation audiences. Two types of graphical displays, a modified box plot and a multivariate STAR graph were compared with tables containing the same information in an experiment with five groups that comprise the audience for evaluation results. For the univariate display, the audiences for an educational evaluation were 67% accurate in interpreting evaluation results when using a graph, compared to 63% accuracy for a table. For the multivariate display, the audiences made accurate comparisons 70% of the time, but these results were bettered by those using a table (84%). However, an individual item analysis offers some guidance for designing multivariate graphics with nontech nical audiences that may be used to improve these displays.

AbstractIn this chapter, realist principles frame evaluation as a support for democratic processes in the pursuit of social betterment. Social betterment is defined as the extent to which public policies and programs meet the ever‐emerging complex of human needs. Distinct implications for the practice of evaluation, including balancing among values, analyzing distributional aspects of a program, and informing democratic processes are discussed.

AbstractWhen analyzing and graphing data, evaluators need to be aware of Simpson's paradox to avoid incorrect interpretations of the data.