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 volume of New Directions for Evaluation focuses on evaluation of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs, with special emphasis on evaluation of STEM education initiatives.

STEM evaluation has always been important, given the issues facing public schools and the economic and social considerations of STEM fields. But because these fields today face a variety of concerns, this discussion of STEM evaluation is particularly timely. Evaluation advances may contribute to STEM fields by helping programs address the challenges they face. This volume presents...

Multisite evaluation settings differ from the single settings common to research on evaluation use. In addition to the primary intended users, there is another important group of potential evaluation users in settings where government agencies or large national or international foundations fund multisite projects: project leaders and local evaluators. If each project site is expected to take part in or support the overall program evaluation, then these individuals frequently serve as links between their projects and the larger cross-project evaluation of the funded program.

The field has...