The Program Evaluation Standards: How to Assess Evaluations of Educational Programs

"The Second Edition provides evaluators and users of evaluation with practical guidelines for planning, implementing, and judging evaluations in educational and social programming. This new edition is further strengthened by more diverse illustrative cases, a supporting bibliography, and guidelines that reflect some of the changes that have occurred in evaluation over the past decade. Its wide appeal for seasoned practitioners, as well as for those less experienced, suggests that the second edition will continue to make a significant contribution to the preparation and practice of evaluators and administrators working in educational and social program evaluation."-JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL MEASUREMENT

"Although they were developed primarily for the field of education, these standards can be applied to a broader range of evaluation settings. The Program Evaluation Standards offer a pragmatic, ′how-to,′ user-friendly guide to program evaluation. We found that simply reading the standards for evaluation is an excellent training exercise for legislative program evaluators. Basing formal staff training on the evaluation standards may be more effective. Actual implementation of the standards in ongoing projects would constitute a sound basis for ensuring quality and uniformity of program evaluations. We strongly encourage you to at least explore these standards for use in your organization." -Linda Triplett and Kathleen Sullivan in NLPES NEWS

Aimed at providing a guide for evaluating educational and training programs, projects, and materials in a variety of settings, these 30 standards within The Program Evaluation Standards were compiled by the Joint Committee from knowledge gained from the professional literature as well as from years of experience by educators and evaluation specialists. The 30 standards are categorized into four groups corresponding to the four attributes of sound and fair program evaluation: utility, feasibility, propriety, and accuracy. Each standard is accompanied by an overview of intent, guidelines for application, common errors, and one or more case illustrations of the standard′s application.

The book also includes information on how to use the standards in terms of the major tasks of a program evaluation: deciding whether to evaluate; designing an evaluation; collecting information; analyzing information; and reporting, budgeting, contracting, managing, and staffing an evaluation. Anyone who commissions or conducts an evaluation, or who uses evaluation results to improve education and training in schools, universities, medical and health care fields, the military, business and industry, the government, and law will find these NEW standards a "must-have" tool.

Sponsored by The Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation consisting of: American Association of School Administrators, American Educational Research Association, American Evaluation Association, American Federation of Teachers, American Psychological Association, Association for Assessment in Counseling, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development ,Canadian Evaluation Society, Canadian Society for the Study of Education, Council of Chief State School Officers, Council on Postsecondary Accreditation, National Association of Elementary School Principals, National Association of Secondary School Principals, National Council on Measurement in Education, National Education Association, National School Boards Association

James R. Sanders is Professor of Education and Associate Director of the Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University. He received his master′s degree in educational research from Bucknell University and his PhD in educational research and evaluation from the University of Colorado. He has served as a visiting professor at St. Patrick′s College (in Dublin, Ireland), Utah State University, and the University of British Columbia. He is coauthor of Educational Evaluation:Theory and Practice (1973), Practices and Problems in Competency-Based Measurement (1979), Educational Evaluation: Alternative Approaches and Practical Guidelines (1987), and Program Evaluation (2004). He is author or coauthor of numerous articles, monographs, and technical reports in the area of program evaluation. His articles have appeared in Review of Educational Research, Educational Researcher, Educational and Psychological Measurement, Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of School Psychology, New Directions for Program Evaluation, Evaluation News, Educational Technology, Journal of Research and Development in Education, Educational Measurement, and American Journal of Evaluation.           
James R. Sanders has served as director or codirector of training institutes in evaluation for the American Educational Research Association, the American Evaluation Association, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and the Western Michigan University Evaluation Center. He has served as a member of the board of directors for the Evaluation Network and the American Evaluation Association and on standing committees for the American Educational Research Association, the National Council on Measurement in Education, the National Science Foundation, Phi Delta Kappa, Independent Sector, and the United Way of America. He has directed research and evaluation projects funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Education, National Science Foundation, and several state agencies. He has consulted with numerous school districts, private industries, instructional businesses, government agencies, research and development corporations, community agencies, and major universities. From 1988 to 1998, he served as chair of the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation, a coalition of 16 professional organizations concerned with the quality of evaluations done in education. He was elected by the American Evaluation Association to serve as President-elect in 2000, President in 2001, and Past President in 2002.