The discipline of evaluation is devoted to the systematic determination of merit, worth, or significance. It is divided into fields according to the type of entity evaluated for example, program evaluation, or personnel evaluation and there are more than twenty of these recognized fields of evaluation. This article addresses the role of evaluation, the basic logic, and a description of how the field is structured.

This article describes some of the basic logic of evaluation skills and some of the basic methodological skills that need to be mastered in order to practice the art and science of evaluation.

This brief report from the Center for Applied Prevention Technologies reviews the types of situations when an evaluation consultant may be appropriate. It also identifies the kinds of skills you might need in an evaluator, depending on your program’s situation.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance is committed to the importance of program evaluation and to developing and enhancing evaluation capabilities at the State and local levels. Evaluation results provide policy makers and program managers with information for future program development and can be used to modify and improve existing programs.

This excerpt from the Action Plan developed by the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention presents a clear description of the issues involved in juvenile justice system data collection and the challenges faced by researchers and evaluators. This section also looks ahead to future directions required by effective juvenile justice research, evaluation, and data collection and proposes a series of steps that the juvenile justice system can take to improve the outlook for effective research and evaluation.

This document contains the full text of three sets of standards reviewed and approved by the National Educational Research Policy and Priorities Board. The standards were mandated by the Congress in 1994 and cover the Evaluation of Applications for Grants and Cooperative Agreements and Proposals for Contracts; Designation of Exemplary and Promising Programs; and Evaluation of the Performance of Recipients of Grants, Cooperative Agreements, and Contracts. An introductory section discusses the use of peer review, qualifications of reviewers, and the criteria that reviewers will use for selecting projects for funding, for evaluating funded projects, and for selecting exemplary promising programs.

A resource to help educators and administrators with little or no formal training in evaluation tailor evaluations to the needs of their schools and districts. Using a real-life, hands-on approach, the guide describes the evaluation process step by step. It provides tips, worksheets, sample questionnaires, and other tools for evaluation.

This document describes the Department's redesigned strategy for assessing the effectiveness of the new Title I -- in the context of state, local, and other federal efforts.

Plain-spoken definitions of the basic types of tests and measures and their characteristics.