Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Metaevaluation By Formal Evaluation Theory Of Aid Evaluation Work, Ryoh Sasaki

Dissertations

This document describes the metaevaluation of aid evaluation reports generated in a single fiscal year (FY 2004). Sample reports (n=102) were chosen basically by stratified random sampling from the pool of evaluation reports (N=1034). The pool consists of ex post evaluation reports (and some extensive midterm and termination evaluation reports) obtained from Web sites.

The Key Aid Evaluation Checklist (KAEC) was developed based on the well-known Key Evaluation Checklist (KEC) (Scriven, 2005, 2006). A supplemental checklist, Subdimensional Checklist (SDC) was also applied for the metaevaluation.

A key conclusion of this metaevaluation is this: Quality of the current aid evaluation reports …

Barriers In Educating Homeless Children And Youth, Gloria Elaine White Adams

Dissertations

Across America, homeless students face a myriad of barriers that impede education and school access and success of homeless children. The purpose of this study was to determine the barriers to enrollment and school success for homeless students. The ultimate goal was to provide information to parents, teachers, administrators, and school districts that could serve as a vital resource tool in educating homeless students while removing barriers.

The participants consisted of 215 certified teachers, school administrators, and homeless liaisons in 23 school districts representing the populations that provide afterschool instruction to homeless students. The study was conducted in the spring …

Communication, Crisis, And Identity: Dialectical Tensions In Family Narratives About Hurricane Katrina, Laura Poole Rogers

Dissertations

In this study victims of Hurricane Katrina ordered their experiences with the crisis into meaningful themes which expressed their values, actions, inactions, occupations, needs and losses, and feelings. In interviews participants explained what happened, when it happened, how they responded, how they thought they should have responded, and how they handled situations surrounding the storm. Narratives about situations after the storm revealed descriptions of their and others' relationships in interactions with representatives of larger social units. The dialectical analysis revealed dialectical tensions that emphasized participants' dynamic and changing relationships and identities. Dialectical analysis of narratives about those relationships revealed dialectical …

Evaluating Organizational Effectiveness, Wesley A. Martz

Dissertations

If organizations are to survive and achieve long-run viability, they must be effective. Yet organizational effectiveness evaluation has been limited by a variety of factors--especially the ambiguity surrounding the concept of organizational effectiveness itself. The long-established approaches used by organizational theorists to define organizational effectiveness have emphasized different perspectives with respect to the organization type and degrees of importance of the various constituency groups comprising the organization. Moreover, definitions of the organization and organizational effectiveness have focused primarily on the dissimilarities among organizations and their constituencies, conceding efforts to identify commonalities . This has led to increased fragmentation of the …

Sustainability Evaluation: Development And Validation Of An Evaluation Checklist, Daniela C. Schroeter

Dissertations

Sustainability permeates many levels of human activity. Interest in sustainability is grounded primarily in the sustainable development field which is concerned with the survival of humans on planet earth, and with the growing demands of meeting people's long-term needs. In the North American evaluation literature, however, sustainability is primarily thought of in terms of continuing program activity beyond initial funding cycles via diversification of funding streams or institutionalization.

Two distinct perspectives for evaluating sustainability were identified. The first is concerned with micro-level issues related to the continuation of programs, policies, and other types of human action. The second is a …

Collective Bargaining In Public Schools: Superintendents' Perspective, Kyle W. Mayer

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore how selected superintendents are experiencing the collective bargaining process. Exploration included an examination of the various roles that selected superintendents have played in the collective bargaining process within rural and suburban school districts in Michigan.

Furthermore, exploration included thematic areas of greatest challenges facing superintendents in recent collective bargaining negotiations. Particular emphasis was given to the style of collective bargaining environment that superintendents reported as most conducive to successful contract negotiations. In addition, the rising cost of health care benefits was a significant point of emphasis within this study.

Twenty-six superintendents from …

Legislative Program Evaluation Conducted By State Legislatures In The United States, John S. Risley

Dissertations

This study examines how U.S. state legislative staffs conduct evaluations. The study addresses the ubiquity of state legislative program evaluation (LPE) units, the standards those units follow, the recommendations that LPE reports proffer, and the quality of the reports on several criteria. The study also addresses the feasibility of using metaevaluation to evaluate a large number of reports using solely the information contained in the reports.

The study uses metaevaluation criteria developed by combining aspects of, primarily, the Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards (GAGAS) for performance audits, the Joint Committee's Program Evaluation Standards (PES), and, secondarily, Scriven's Key Evaluation Checklist. …

International Aid Evaluation: An Analysis And Policy Proposals, Thomaz Kauark Chianca

Dissertations

Evaluation has been intertwined with international aid work since its inception in the late 40's-early 50's, but it is still an area with considerable room for improvement. If, as is often alleged, evaluations of international development efforts are methodologically weak they are misleading international agencies about the real impact of the sizable amount of resources being spent. A recent study by Chianca, described in this thesis, with a sample of 50 US-based international non-profit organizations (INGOs) illustrates the serious situation of the structure and practice of evaluation in those agencies.

A number of efforts to improve this situation have been …