Education Commons^™

Supervision And Evaluation Of Probationary Teachers: Policies And Practices In Class Ii And Class Iii Nebraska School Districts, Robert W. Michl

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this study was to identify policies and practices used to supervise and evaluate probationary teachers in Class II and Class III Nebraska school districts. A secondary purpose was to identify differences existing between policies and practices applicable to tenured and probationary teachers.

Two samples were studied. The sample of the survey instrument study was 48 randomly selected principals who supervised and evaluated certificated employees of Class II and Class III school districts in Nebraska during the Spring Semester, 2006.

The sample of the policy study was a set of 49 randomly selected Class II and Class III …

Annual Progress Report: Nebraska Reading First Two Year Implementation, Guy Trainin, Oren Yagil, Malinda M. Murphy

Research and Evaluation in Education, Technology, Art, and Design

This report outlines the results of a two year implementation of the Nebraska's Reading First initiative. Over three thousand six hundred students from Kindergarten to Third grade were included in the project. Results indicated significant growth across all demographic groups. Student performance in the earlier grades has shown great promise for later years. Growth in fluency and comprehension in grades 2 and 3 were not as impressive and require additional attention. The assessment results were triangulated by observations in the classrooms, interviews, and teacher responses to professional development- teachers know how to teach Phonemic Awareness and the alphabetic principle but …

An Inquiry Into Retention And Achievement Differences In Campus Based And Web Based Ap Classes, Michael Barbour, Dennis Mulcahy

Education Faculty Publications

A decade ago the Advanced Placement (AP) program was introduced into the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Initially, schools embraced this opportunity to provide their students with opportunities that were previously unavailable. However, within a few years the AP program was relegated to urban and large regional high schools. Few smaller, and particularly rural schools, were able to offer AP courses only to the brightest one or two students taking it as an independent study. In 1997-98, schools began to delivery AP courses in a web-based method. The purpose of the study is to examine the retention rates and …

Nebraska Reading First Winter Report 2005-2006, Guy Trainin, Oren Yagil

Research and Evaluation in Education, Technology, Art, and Design

The Winter Progress Report offers an overview of student mid-year achievement. Student achievement will be interpreted through two separate comparisons. In each section we start with a comparison of this year’s winter achievement and last year’s mid-year achievement; a between cohorts comparison. This comparison will show whether the mid-year achievement of Reading First schools is higher than last year as we anticipated. A second comparison focuses on following student achievement from fall to winter of 2005-2006 school year. This within cohort comparison shows the sustainability of this year’s baseline.

Nebraska's Reading First State Report Fall 2005-6, Guy Trainin

Research and Evaluation in Education, Technology, Art, and Design

The Fall Progress Report offers an overview of student baseline achievement. Student achievement will be interpreted through two separate comparisons. In each section we start with a comparison of this year’s baseline and last year’s baseline; a between cohorts comparison. This comparison will show whether the starting point of Reading First schools is higher this year as we anticipated. A second comparison focuses on following student achievement from spring of 2004-2005 school year to fall of 2005-2006. This within cohort comparison shows the sustainability of last year’s gains and the effects of the Summer Reading Setback.

Nebraska's Reading First State Report Fall 2005-6, Guy Trainin, Oren Yagil

Research and Evaluation in Education, Technology, Art, and Design

The Fall Progress Report offers an overview of student baseline achievement. Student achievement is interpreted through two separate comparisons. In each section we start with a comparison of this years’ baseline and last years’ baseline; a between cohorts comparison. This comparison will show whether the starting point of Reading First schools is higher this year as we anticipated. A second comparison focuses on following student achievement from spring of 2004-2005 to fall of 2005-2006. This within cohort comparison shows the sustainability of last years gains and the effects of the Summer Reading Setback.

Scholarly Use Of Information: Graduate Students' Information Seeking Behaviour, Carole A. George, A. Bright, T Hurlbert, E C. Linke, G St. Clair, J Stein

Carole A. George

Introduction. This study explored graduate students' information behaviour related to their process of inquiry and scholarly activities. Method. In depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with one hundred graduate students representing all disciplines and departments from Carnegie Mellon University. Analysis. Working in pairs, we coded transcripts of interviews into meaningful categories using ATLAS.ti software. The combined use of quantitative and qualitative analysis aimed to reduce subjectivity. Results. Graduate students often begin with a meeting with professors who provide direction, recommend and provide resources. Other students help to shape graduate students' research activities, and university library personnel provide guidance in finding resources. …

Harnessing Innovative Technologies In Higher Education, Kathleen P. King, Joan K. Griggs

Kathleen P King

This publication is an attempt to capture the evolution of distributed higher education over the last decade by tracing the applications of new technologies funded by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). As FIPSE surveyed the current state of distance/distributed education, there existed an opportunity to help post econdary education make the transition to this new generation of distance education made possible by the explosive growth of the Internet and other new technologies. These technologies created the potential for students to access learning that was interactive, customized, and self-paced; to more easily merge lifelong learning with the …

Steering By Engagement:Towards An Integrated Planning And Evaluation Framework In Higher Education Institutes, Deirdre Lillis

Conference papers

Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) worldwide are investing significant resources in strategic planning and self study programs to improve institutional performance. Both are expensive undertakings in terms of the time invested by participants and it is not unusual to see both programs underway in a HEI at the same time. The underlying knowledge produced about the challenges facing the Institution and the necessary responses can be broadly similar although their methodologies and presentation may differ. This paper reports on the comparative effectiveness of three strategic planning and three self study programs undertaken in one HEI over an 8 year timeframe under …

Faculty Development In Member Institutions Of The Florida Faculty Development Consortium: Strategic Plans, Evaluation Models, Organization, And Funding, Laura Ross

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine strategic plans and evaluation models in light of organizational structures and funding to determine if member institutions in the Florida Faculty Development Consortium were investing in faculty development based on strategic and measurable criteria. Data were gathered through a mixed method survey mailed electronically to the individuals responsible for faculty development at 31 member institutions of the Florida Faculty Development Consortium. Even though the Consortium was comprised of public and private four-year institutions and public two-year institutions, faculty development programs in these institutions had similarities. Most programs had strategic plans, centralized faculty …

Harnessing Innovative Technologies In Higher Education: Access, Equity, Policy & Instruction, Kathleen P. King, Joan K. Griggs

Leadership, Counseling, Adult, Career and Higher Education Faculty Publications

This publication is an attempt to capture the evolution of distributed higher education over the last decade by tracing the applications of new technologies funded by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). As FIPSE surveyed the current state of distance/distributed education, there existed an opportunity to help post econdary education make the transition to this new generation of distance education made possible by the explosive growth of the Internet and other new technologies. These technologies created the potential for students to access learning that was interactive, customized, and self-paced; to more easily merge lifelong learning with the …

The Relationship Among Wellness, Severity Of Disturbance, And Social Desirability Of Entering Master's-Level Counseling Students, Heather Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A wellness paradigm may hold promise for unifying and strengthening the identity of the counseling profession. The construct of wellness may also hold implications for assessment of entering master's-level counseling students, as a tool for continuous evaluation of students, or for overall program evaluation. In this study, the only counseling-based wellness assessment measure, the Five Factor Wellness Evaluation of Lifestyle, was tested for its relationship to two other constructs: psychological disturbance and social desirability. In order to test the research hypotheses, a total of nine programs (in five states) and 204 entering master's-level counseling students completed instrumentation packets comprised of …

Bar Raising Or Navel-Gazing?:The Effectiveness Of Self-Study Programmes In Eading To Improvements In Institutional Performance, Deirdre Lillis

Conference papers

Higher Education Institutes worldwide are investing significant resources in self study programmes to improve institutional performance, to enhance quality and to meet external stakeholder demands. The institutional impacts of both internally and externally mandated self study programmes is an area where little empirical research exists. A key question is whether self study programmes are effective (or otherwise) in leading to improvements in institutional performance and the reasons why. Covering an eight year period, from 1997–2006, this paper reports on the use of systematic evaluation methodology (Rossi et al., 2003) to evaluate the effectiveness of three self study programmes in leading …

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).

Values Driven Evaluation, P. Cristian Gugiu, Nadini Persuad, Brandon Youker

Brandon W. Youker Ph.D

Values are the basis for defining what aspects of the evaluand should be considered meritous in a particular context. They are something which is in principle or quality intrinsically valuable or desirable. So in evaluation, factual premises describe performance, while value premises can be thought of as the qualities that, when converted to standards, determine the degree to which the performance was good or bad, worthwhile or worthless, and significant or insignificant. Value premises can be validated using commonsense or based on such things as the severity of needs, resource efficiency, legal requirements, professional requirements, and so on. There are …

Review Of The Evaluation Exchange, Volume Xi(1), Xi(2), And Xi(3), Brandon W. Youker Ph.D

Brandon W. Youker Ph.D

The Evaluation Exchange is a free, online evaluation periodical (http://www.gse.harvard.edu/hfrp/eval.html) published by the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) three or four times annually. It is aimed at addressing issues that program evaluators frequently encounter. The journal emphasizes innovative methods and approaches to evaluation, emerging trends in practice, and practical applications of evaluation theory. It is designed to serve as a medium for evaluators, program practitioners, funders, and policymakers.