Hardbound. This book is the first of its kind to address community arts and evaluation with an emphasis on the visual arts. This volume draws together a variety of international perspectives dealing with the common difficulty of conception related to both the mission of community centers and of the value of the visual arts programs offered within them. This volume provides a wide range of views solicited from scholars, expert in evaluation and community arts, who are situated in different cultural settings.

Hardbound. One of the more interesting perspectives for evaluation is 'narrative'. Narratives are the common vehicles people use to understand and to communicate the value of their actions and social practices. Given the valuational and action-oriented character of narrative it seems strange that evaluators have not yet discovered its value. In this volume we, an international and multidisciplinary group of practising evaluators and policy analysts in various policy fields such as mental health, education, social welfare and water management, explore what a narrative perspective can mean for...

The National Science Foundation??'s (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program is a diverse and dynamic set of projects intent on improving the USA's technical workforce. This book uses the ATE work as a means to focus on key issues for federally funded projects and all community colleges facing the difficult challenges of staying current and reaching constituents in positive ways.

This book brings a wealth of information on key issues for community colleges. Topics addressed include:


How to sustain innovative...

This examination of advances in programme evaluation looks at issues such as deconstructing illuminative evaluation and new paradigm research; programme evaluation as a conceptual practice of power; and pragmatism and evaluative enquiry for organizational learning. It acknowledges the spread of postmodern doubt to the field of programme evaluation and the contributing authors discuss the theoretical and practical challenges postmodernism presents to programme evaluators.

Nothing is as fundamental to the quality of a school system as the quality of its teachers. For this reason many countries are seeking policies that meet the challenge of promoting quality teaching. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) in the USA is the most ambitious and successful attempt by any country to establish a certification system for recognizing and rewarding teachers who reach high professional standards. Established in 1987, the Boards mission has been driven by a simple principle; to place more value on accomplished teaching, we must learn how to...

A comprehensive and authoritative overview of issues relating to the evaluation of criminal justice/corrections 'interventions', this unique reference draws on a variety of theoretical, cultural and epistemological perspectives with authors from a range of disciplines and countries. It begins by looking at the purpose of evaluation within criminal justice systems as a historical and conceptual background. Methods outlined for evaluating criminal justice focus on educating readers about the design decisions they may face as evaluators, enabling them to make informed decisions when choosing...

Current conventions in school evaluation focus on accountability, control and compliance. New Zealand offers a distinctive, systemic alternative to school self-evaluation, with developmental and negotiated approaches ingrained throughout the education system, from school inspection to major government schooling improvement initiatives. In New Zealand there is no national testing, other than a Ministry-sponsored (voluntary) formative assessment system designed for school and teacher self-evaluation. This is a form of professional and program evaluation where there is shared power and...

This volume of "Advances for Program Evaluation" examines the nature and seriousness of fieldworkers' problems of failure to gain access, achieve comprehension, and avoid intrusion. To do all three, fieldworkers' need understanding and respect of the people from whom they seek data as well as be consciously and critically aware of staging field relationships knotted with tensions of estrangement, involvement, familiarity and distance. In the nine chapters of this volume, the authors speak of access to human subjects data, dealing with methods and concerns about intrusion. Attention is given...

In today's world, with its preoccupation with impact assessments and results-based management, program evaluation is all too often framed as an affirmation of an official narrative rather than as a source of alternatives. The power of case study is its insistence on opening up rather than suppressing the complexity of social programs, on documenting multiple voices and exploring contested viewpoints. In this way, case study resists the trend towards evaluations that simply focus on 'what works', that reduce the complexity of social life to a single narrative, and to formulations that strip...