Programme evaluation toolbox: effective evaluation principles and considerations in career practice

In our ever-present age of accountability, career development professionals are increasingly called upon to document evidence-based outcomes and other metrics of programme effectiveness. In this article, we will review the key components of effective programme evaluation, including purposes and types of evaluation. Our review will span empirical and practical literature across disciplines and within guidance and counselling, specifically. We will review current evaluation models within an international context but focus predominantly on US based ones, along with articulating their shortfalls. Finally, we will present a potentially transformative advocacy-infused model of programme evaluation.     

A Glimpse into the Minds of Mothers: The Default Mode Network and Responsiveness to Infant Cries

SYNOPSIS

The authors comment on a paper reporting differences between mothers and non-mothers in neural responses to infant cries and other emotive sounds while engaging in self- or goal-oriented tasks. The value of examining deactivation of the default mode network (DMN) as a means of understanding differential attention patterns in both typical and atypical populations is discussed, as is the generalizability of the experimental paradigm to ecologically relevant contexts. The role of an individual’s age, parental status, and experience in shaping responses to infant crying is considered, and future avenues of research are suggested. An argument is made for coupling neuroimaging techniques with behavioral assays to better understand the determinants of maternal behavior.     

The lessons of international education reform

This paper examines the nature of education reform in English‐speaking countries in an attempt to draw out its implications for other countries. The focus is on three main areas of reform: decentralization and local management of schools, markets and choice programs, and increased use of large‐scale student assessment. Other countries should be very cautious in borrowing these ideas about education reform for at least three reasons: these reforms embody problems of contradictory purposes; reforms with similar names actually end up looking quite different because of contextual differences; and such reforms are weakly connected to teaching and learning and hence to outcomes. A program of reform in any setting should be grounded in a clear sense of educational purpose that fits the particular social context.     

The keyword method compared to alternative vocabulary-learning strategies

Imagery and sentence versions of the keyword method of vocabulary learning were contrasted with three nonkeyword verbal-contextual alternatives. Subjects' definition learning in the imagery keyword condition was substantially higher than when subjects were presented the vocabulary in sentence contexts, when they generated sentence contexts for the words, when they made decisions about whether the words were used correctly in sentences, or when they were left to their own devices to learn the words. The learning benefits associated with the sentence keyword version were not as dramatic as in the imagery keyword condition. They were more evident when recall of any part of the definition was considered correct than when recall of the entire definition was necessary. These results indicate that the keyword method is a potent alternative to vocabulary-learning techniques that are regarded as effective by curriculum experts in reading.