Three exploratory studies examined the relevance of a developmental model for approaching supervision of graduate students in evaluation studies. The developmental model described in this article includes three stages and eight developmental tasks within each stage. The studies found a...

This study asked three questions: (a) What ethical principles are available to guide program evaluators? (b) how do the standards developed by the Joint Committee on Standards match up with ethical principles? and (c) what are the implications for refinement of the standards, training...

The Conflict Model of Decisionmaking (Janis and Mann, 1977) served as the theoretical framework for the development of scales and inventories to assess the decision-making risk, decision context, and information needs for different program dimensions being evaluated. The decision-making risk...

Communication theory suggests that the effectiveness of a communication is related to who says what, how, and to whom. This study, using a communication theory paradigm, examined the impact of different simulated evaluation report styles (use of jargon and data) on audience (educators) agreement...

this study investigated the effect that several key contextual variables had on the information needs and uses by a national sample of school boards and administrators. The factors included (I) the quality of the decision to be made, (2) the amount of personal conflict involved, (3) the content...

This study uses a series of items, derived from the Joint Committee Standards, to examine the frequency and seriousness of violations in program evaluations. Each item represents one of the 30 standards and reflects the pitfalls or common errors accorded to that standard. Respondents to the...

There is now a body of research available that suggests that the personal characteristics of decision makers influence how information is used. One characteristic that influences use of information is sense or locus of control in the decision-making context. This article presents three studies...