The first annual MIS report, a program-wide summary of ITEST projects, was released in June 2010. This report, prepared with data from the first annual ITEST Management Information System (MIS) administration in 2009, describes who ITEST projects served, how many participants they served, the structure of the project, their intended outcomes, and how those outcomes were measured.
ITEST LRC Data Brief Volume 1, Issue 1 This Data Brief provides a descriptive summary of project findings submitted to the Management Information System by ITEST projects active in 2011-2012.
The first issue of the Insights and Innovations in STEM Learning series synthesizes learnings from a thematic analysis of ITEST projects’ reported outcomes, challenges, and innovations.
In this report, Inverness Research summarizes their findings based on evaluating the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH)'s high school program over 10 years. The report includes: A discussion of the theory of action and the rationale that underlies the AMNH youth programs A description of three of the programs that have been offered and the evolution in program design that has taken place over the years A description of the core common features of the programs
ITEST LRC Data Brief Volume 1, Issue 2 This Data Brief explores findings reported in the 2011-2012 Management Information System (MIS). In this edition we focus on the topic of validated instruments, by analyzing information reported by the projects regarding their use of instruments to measure youth and teacher outcomes, their research questions and their evaluation questions. The MIS asked project Principal Investigators (PIs) whether or not they use externally developed and validated instruments to measure youth or teacher outcomes. For those projects using external instruments, the MIS
In today's world of high accountability, strong evidence on intended outcomes is key to building credibility and replicability of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs. This primer, for program directors/managers, educators and others responsible for developing and implementing STEM programs: Provides evaluation guidelines and resources for program leaders who are implementing STEM programs in schools and community-based organizations. Reduces "evaluation anxiety" for individuals who are not professional evaluators by providing guidelines for good evaluation
Multi-site evaluations are becoming increasingly common in federal funding portfolios. Although much thought has been given to multi-site evaluation, there has been little emphasis on how it might interact with participatory evaluation. Therefore, this paper reviews several National Science Foundation educational, multi-site evaluations for the purpose of examining the extent to which these evaluations are participatory. Based on this examination, the paper proposes a model for implementing multi-site, participatory evaluation.
Produced by the Association for the Study and Development of Community (ASDC) for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, this document offers an orientation to handbooks and basic primers on evaluation. These resources are designed to meet the needs of the non-expert, explaining some of the central issues in evaluation and why they are important. The Guide itself helps organizations to assess which evaluation primer might be most useful for their needs and what to expect, in terms of information, from each.
Multisite evaluations are increasingly being used by the federal government and large foundations. A framework for understanding the variations among multisite evaluations and developing ways to improve them is presented in this chapter.
Publicly funded multisite evaluations should help bring safe, effective interventions to the mental health and substance abuse treatment fields. Two principles, science-based practice and stakeholder participation, drive multisite evaluations of behavioral interventions. We examine the roles of these principles in the five programs described in this volume and draw lessons for future studies.