Designing And Utilizing Evaluations for Gifted Program Improvement

Offering the most effective methods for gifted education program evaluation and improvement, this book acts as a critical guide for administrators, teachers, and researchers. The book reviews the program evaluation process, presents models and strategies for effective evaluation, and provides tools for using evaluation as a foundation for program improvement. Edited by Dr. Joyce VanTassel-Baska and Dr. Annie Xuemei Feng, this resource is intended to offer step-by-step guidance in effective program improvement from the nation's leading experts on the topic. Chapters cover survey construction and implementation, use of focus groups, assessment of classroom practices, outcome assessment, alignment with the best practice standards, strategies for synthesizing your findings, and much more. This unique resource is a critical piece of the program improvement process.

Joyce VanTassel-Baska, Ed.D., is the Jody and Layton Smith Professor Emerita of Education and former Executive Director of the Center for Gifted Education at William & Mary in Virginia, where she developed a graduate program and a research and development center in gifted education. She also initiated and directed the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University.

Annie Xuemei Feng was research and evaluation director of the Center for Gifted Education at The College of William and Mary until the fall of 2007 when she began employment as a researcher at the National Institution of Health in Bethesda, MD. Her research interests include curriculum effectiveness studies, program evaluation research, gender-related studies, and cross-cultural research.