THE USE OF EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN IN EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION

Considerable controversy has existed concerning the utility of experimental design in educational evaluation. The polar positions are that experimental design has no utility in educational evaluation and that experimental design is the only valid evaluation strategy. This article examines these positions in terms of conceptualizations of evaluation according to the'LCIPP Evaluation Model "and of experimental design according to the "true comparative experiment." An alternative position including three main points is developed: (a) The methodology of educational evaluation includes much more than the methodology of experimental design; (b) Experimental design does have potential utility in the areas of input and product evaluation, but not within the areas of context and process evaluation; (c) The utility of experimental design can be increased by following a set of procedures that do not require the use of common criterion instruments and uniform decision rules for all students in an experiment; this allows judgment of a program in terms of the number of students for whom it was successful.     

Education,Equality and Social Cohesion: A distributional approach

Promoting social cohesion through education has re-emerged as an important policy objective in many countries during the past decade. But there is little clarity in policy discussions about what social cohesion means and how education may affect it. In this article we distinguish between social capital and societal cohesion and argue that education acts in differential ways on each. Using comparative, cross-country analysis, we develop a 'distributional model' which shows the relationship between equality of educational outcomes and various measures of social cohesion. In the final part of the article we discuss theories explaining the cross-country trends and variations in educational inequality and social inheritance in education, and argue that education system characteristics, such as degrees of 'comprehensiveness' in secondary schooling, may be an important factor in both. We conclude by arguing that policies to increase social cohesion through education must pay more attention to the reduction of educational equality than they currently do.     

Facilitating Holistic Curriculum Development

There is a movement in higher education to think of a curriculum less as a sequence of independent courses and more as a set of highly integrated learning and assessment experiences designed to help students develop clearly defined outcomes. This paper reports on a case study that illustrates how internal curriculum assessment processes used by an environmental science and policy department in an institution of higher education lead to the creation of an innovative tenure-track faculty line for someone whose primary activities and scholarship focus not on traditional disciplinary scholarship but instead on coordinating the holistic development of an integrated curriculum. This paper goes on to show how I, the person hired into this position, am facilitating the coordinated development of a senior thesis programme, a junior entry course into the major and a disciplinary writing programme for the purpose of developing a more integrated curriculum.     

The Great Therapists Program: Computerized Learning of Counseling Theories

The authors examine the effectiveness and subjective enjoyment of a computer-assisted instruction program to teach neophyte counselors classic methods of psychotherapy. Software was developed that called for beginning counseling students to simulate dialogue with a client via the computer's keyboard. Students were able to compare their responses with those of classic therapists. Provisions for a printed record of the session were made. Questionnaires, knowledge tests, and students' choices of counseling styles provided investigators with feedback on learning and level of positive response to the teaching method. As with most computer-assisted instruction studies, no evidence supporting increases in learning was obtained; however, free responses and ratings indicated that the students positively evaluated the program as a learning experience.     

The Educational Benefits of a Commercial Failure

The financial failure of an industrial collaborator released the author and colleagues from the normal constraints of commercial confidence. In addition a large residue of source material was acquired at minimal cost. As an example of the benefits, the paper describes in some detail a case study in design for manufacture.     

Review of Research on Practicum Supervision

This six-year review of research on practicum supervision examines articles in terms of findings and the research designs employed. Research is classified according to (a) counselor—supervisor similarity, (b) training methods, and (c) evaluation. Conclusions from the review indicate: (a) the investigators found no support for matching counselors and supervisors according to similar traits; (b) there was some support for modeling, didactic, and experiential methods; (c) there was some support for peer supervision; and (d) an experimental design was used in only 4 of the 19 studies examined.