Practical Evaluation for Educators: Finding What Works and What Doesn't

"Roger Kaufman and his colleagues have produced what is simply the best practical book on educational evaluation published in the past few years. It is current, clearly written, and structured in a way that educators can apply it in a huge variety of educational contexts."
-Richard Clark, Professor
University of Southern California  

"As an evaluation book written for educators and education, this publication delivers on its promise. It provides a practical, professional, and comprehensive approach for planning and conducting evaluation studies that are meaningful and effective for understanding and improving the education enterprise."
-Dale W. Lick, Professor
College of Education, Florida State University, Tallahassee

"The book describes how to ask and answer the right questions in order to measure the gaps in results and their consequences...Readers will be able to custom tailor an evaluation plan for their specific situations. Practical examples and scenarios along with how-to-do-it guides show readers how to apply the concepts and tools presented."
-James D. Russell, EdD, Professor, Visiting Research Associate
Educational Psychology and Learning Systems Institute
Florida State University, Tallahassee 

"This book puts evaluation in a framework of societal needs, while simultaneously being results-oriented and practical. This is a unique combination of ′how to′ with ′why′ that is of immense importance in the present time when the public value of education seems to have been lost ...(while) citizens also demand specifics."
-Elizabeth D. Capaldi, Vice Chancellor & Chief of Staff
State University of New York

Use program evaluations to define measurable results and deliver meaningful outcomes!

Finding a straightforward approach to educational evaluations is the most important step toward discovering and reporting the meaningful results underlying the hard work of education. Kaufman, Guerra and Platt present program evaluation as a trouble-free process that any educator can effectively complete while providing the evidence required to justify and validate any educational endeavor.

Drawing from the education, business, and military fields, this accessible resource shows educators, administrators, politicians, learners, and parents how to distill evaluations to uncover what works and what doesn′t. Practical Evaluation for Educators breaks down the program evaluation process into four easy-to-understand steps:

• Align and direct evaluation questions into useful queries aimed at the intended results of educational programs
• Observe to gather pertinent, valid, and useful data
• Compare the results of what was accomplished to what was planned to be accomplished
• Use the data by taking action and adjusting programs to bring them into alignment with societal needs

When educators see evaluation as a simple, useful tool for improving programs, measurable results become meaningful.

Roger Kaufman is Professor Emeritus, Florida State University, and Director of Roger Kaufman & Associates. He is also Distinguished Research Professor at the Sonora Institute of Technology. His PhD is in communications from New York University. He consults with public and private organizations in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,   Latin America, and Europe. He is a Certified Performance Technologist and a Diplomate in School Psychology and a Fellow in Educational Psychology of the American Psychological Association. He has been recognized by the ASTD for Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Performance. Dr. Kaufman has published 39 books and more than 256 articles on strategic planning, performance improvement, quality management and continuous improvement, needs assessment, management, and evaluation.

Ingrid J. Guerra is an Assistant Professor at the Wayne State University. Previously, she was an assistant professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, where she taught across two graduate programs, Performance Improvement & Instructional Design, and Public Administration. She is also a pri­vate consultant for private and public organizations   nationally and internationally and a professional member of Roger Kaufman & Associates. She has served as Chair of Needs Assessment TIG for the American Evaluation Association and Chair of the Research Committee for the International Society for Performance Improvement. In addition, she has published articles in journals such as International Public Management Review, International Journal for Educational Reform, Performance Improvement Quarterly, Performance Improvement Journal, Human Resource Development Quarterly, Educational Technology, and Quarterly Review of Distance Education, among others. Ingrid received her PhD and MA in Instructional Systems and her bachelor’s in Psychology from the Florida State University.


William A. Platt is currently a Principle Instructional Designer for Concurrent Technologies Corporation, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and was previously the Program Manager for Evaluation in the Office of Technical Training and Evaluation in the Veterans Benefits Administration. He is a member of the American Evaluation Association. He has consulted for the defense industry in the area of simulation and training and has pre­sented professional papers on task analysis and instructional design. He was a Branch Head with the Naval Training Systems Center in charge of Land Warfare Training Analysis. His PhD is in Instructional Technology from Indiana University. He served as member of the Adjunct Faculty at the Marine Corps Service Support Schools and has served as a training advisor for Marine Corps training commands. He retired at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.