Education Commons^™

Snapshot Of Student Wellbeing, Petra Lietz

Dr Petra Lietz

A new study has found that most Australian children report high levels of wellbeing, but wellbeing varies by background, especially for a quarter of children who identify as marginalised. Petra Lietz examines the findings.

How Do Instructional Designers Evaluate? A Qualitative Study Of Evaluation In Practice, David Williams, Joseph South, Stephen Yanchar, Brent Wilson, Stephanie Allen

Brent Wilson

This study employed a qualitative research design to investigate how instructional designers use evaluation in everyday design practice. While past research has examined how designers spend their time, how they generally make decisions, and expertnovice differences, little attention has been paid to use of context, input, process, or product evaluation, from the perspective of practicing designers. Based on interviews of practitioners, our findings included ten themes regarding how designers use evaluation to improve their products. While these results substantiate to some degree the claim that practitioners believe clients will not pay for formal evaluations, they also suggest that practitioners use …

Desk-Based Evaluation Of Workbooks And Textbooks, Mary Kimani, Rachel Outhred, Jenny Wilkinson, Marion Meiers

Marion Meiers

Report to South Africa UNICEF Country Office

Evaluation Of Data Literacy And Usage To Improve Outcomes, Martina Bovell, D D'Aloia, Elizabeth O'Grady, Elizabeth Kleinhenz, Petra Lietz, Mollie Tobin, Gerald White

Dr Elizabeth Kleinhenz

No abstract provided.

Evaluation Of Data Literacy And Usage To Improve Outcomes, Martina Bovell, D D'Aloia, Elizabeth O'Grady, Elizabeth Kleinhenz, Petra Lietz, Mollie Tobin, Gerald White

Dr Petra Lietz

No abstract provided.

Warlpiri Early Childhood Care And Development Program Evaluation: Fifth Progress Report, Stephanie Armstrong, Bill Perrett, Andrew Stojanovski

Dr Bill Perrett

No abstract provided.

Education Assessment In The 21st Century, Geoff Masters

Prof Geoff Masters AO

The author argues that there is a need for significant reform in educational assessment. Instead of judging student success only in terms of year-level expectations, assessment needs to recognise the progress that all students can make in their learning, regardless of students' starting points.

Goal-Free Evaluation: A Potential Model For The Evaluation Of Social Work Programs, Brandon Youker

Brandon W. Youker Ph.D

Goal-free evaluation (GFE) is an evaluation model where the evaluator is deliberately kept from the stated (or implied) goals and objectives of the program; this is accomplished by appointing a screener to keep goal-related information from the goal-free evaluator. Screening the evaluator from program goals is designed to control bias inherent in goal-based evaluation (GBE), a bias that contaminates the evaluator’s ability to see the program’s true outcomes and true merit. Although GFE has been around for more than half a century, GBE continues to dominate evaluation practice and the literature on GFE remains sparse and highly theoretical. This article …

Process Evaluation Of The Hunter Illawarra Kids Challenge Using Parent Support Study: A Multisite Randomized Controlled Trial For The Management Of Child Obesity., Rachel A. Jones, Janet M. Warren, Anthony D. Okely, Clare E. Collins, Philip J. Morgan, Dylan P. Cliff, Tracy L. Burrows, Jane Cleary, Louise A. Baur

A. D. Okely

The purposes of this article are to (a) outline findings from secondary or process outcome data of the Hunter Illawarra Kids Challenge Using Parent Support (HIKCUPS) study and (b) inform the design and development of future research interventions and practice in the management of child obesity. Data were collected by means of facilitator evaluations, independent session observation, attendance records, and parent questionnaires. Internal validity and reliability of the program delivery were high. All parents reported positive changes in their children as a result of the physical activity program, the dietary modification program, or both. Most participants completed the home activities, …

Enhancing Education, Sheldon Rothman, David Slattery, Sarah Buckley, John Ainley

Dr John Ainley

How Well Do We Practice What We Preach? An Evaluation Of Teleteaching '96., Geraldine Lefoe, Robert Corderoy, Sandra Wills

Sandra Wills

No abstract provided.

The Logic Of Evaluation And Not-For-Profit Arts Organizations: The Perspective Of An Evaluation Consultant, Brandon Youker

Brandon W. Youker Ph.D

This article defines evaluation, describes the logic of evaluation and discusses evaluation as it pertains to not-for-profit arts organizations. The purpose is to explain to not-for-profit arts organizations how an evaluation consultant conceptualizes the task of program evaluation. The article is based on the perspective and experiences of a consultant who was contracted to assist in building the program monitoring and internal evaluation capacities of arts organizations. Understanding the basics of systematic evaluation will assist arts organizations in developing sound program monitoring and evaluation strategies and practices.

Consequence Of Competing And Complementary Evaluation Approaches: A Case Study., Brandon Youker, Chris Coryn, Daniela Schröter, Michelle Bakerson

Brandon W. Youker Ph.D

A poster presentation demonstrating an evaluation of a summer school program for middle schoolers in which the evaluators divided into two teams and simultaneously evaluated the program. The first team examined the students' performance according to the program's ability to achieve stated goals while the second team intentionally avoided any knowledge of or reference to the stated goals and objectives throughout the entire evaluation. The two teams wrote separate reports and then a combined report.

Review Of Exploring Evaluator Role And Identity., Carolyn Sullins, Brandon Youker

Brandon W. Youker Ph.D

A book review of "Exploring Evaluator Role and Identity" edited by Katherine E. Ryan and Thomas A. Schwandt (2002).

Assessing Second Language Writing: The Rater’S Perspective, Tom Lumley

Dr Tom Lumley

This study investigates the process of rating texts written by adult ESL learners. Four experienced raters provided think-aloud protocols describing the rating process for a set of 24 texts. The think-aloud data allowed analysis of the sequence of rating, raters' interpretations of the scoring categories, and difficulties raters faced. The study reveals the complexity of the rating process, whereby raters struggle to resolve a tension between the wordings (or rules) of the rating scale and their complex, initial, intuitive impression of the text. Rating requires training to provide reliable measurement. The study also demonstrates that caution is needed in interpreting …

Values And Goal-Free Evaluation: A Case Study, Brandon Youker

Brandon W. Youker Ph.D

How does a goal-free evaluator deal with values? Which values? Whose values? This presentation argues that the goal-free evaluator takes a consumerist perspective. Thus the evaluator's values are in serving the program's consumers and satisfying the consumers' needs.

Homogenous And High Performing Classes : The Case Of Optimal Classes, K Schwippert, Maurice Walker

Maurice Walker

Students enter schools with different levels of reading literacy and this study concentrated on the school's influence on students' subsequent development in reading literacy. The question is whether teacher and school characteristics, by themselves, have a systematic influence on the development of students' reading literacy. It has been and continues to be a goal of schools, in tandem with social policies, to compensate for student disadvantage arising form the out-of-school environment. Schools should not therefore aim to offer uniform educational opportunities to students without regard to differences in students' background and learning profiles. This article demonstrates it is classes where …

Inclusion Of Numeracy In Adult Basic Education, Dave Tout, Mary Schmitt

David (Dave) Tout

In their chapter on numeracy, the authors begin by exploring the many terms used to describe the learning of mathematics by adults. They discuss the relationship between the terms "mathematics" and "numeracy" and explain why numeracy--making meaning with numbers and mathematical processes--is the term they chose for their overview. Moving on to examine adult numeracy education in the U.S, the authors find that little attention is paid to the development of math skills among adults in Adult Basic Education (ABE) research but that adult numeracy education is prominent in practice. They highlight the development of practitioner groups that share ideas, …

Assessment Criteria In A Large-Scale Writing Test: What Do They Really Mean To The Raters?, Tom Lumley

Dr Tom Lumley

The process of rating written language performance is still not well understood, despite a body of work investigating this issue over the last decade or so (e.g., Cumming, 1990; Huot, 1990; Vaughan, 1991; Weigle, 1994a; Milanovic et al., 1996). The purpose of this study is to investigate the process by which raters of texts written by ESL learners make their scoring decisions using an analytic rating scale designed for multiple test forms. The context is the Special Test of English Proficiency (step), which is used by the Australian government to assist in immigration decisions. Four trained, experienced and reliable step …

Numeracy In The Adult Literacy And Life Skills Project., M Manly, Dave Tout

David (Dave) Tout

This paper reports on the development to date of the numeracy conceptual framework for the Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) Project. The inclusion of a numeracy scale in the ALL survey offered a significant opportunity to develop a new conceptual framework for adult numeracy. This paper discusses the meaning of numeracy and the notion of numerate behaviour, represents a framework of five facets, looks at a complexity-rating scheme used to guide construction of the assessment tasks, and finally presents some preliminary findings about adults' ability to solve different percentage tasks.