Francis M. Pottenger

The Complexity of Measuring the Quality of Program Implementation With Observations: The Case of Middle School Inquiry-Based Science

In the growing literature on the evaluation of program implementation, less has been said about evaluating program quality than about evaluating other aspects of program implementation. Furthermore, most articles and reports in the program-implementation evaluation literature have presented only brief descriptions of how implementation instruments have been developed. In this article, the authors describe a method for evaluating the quality of implementation of middle school inquiry-based science using data from observations scaled with paired comparison judgments. The authors show the complexities of developing and applying the method, describe how they tried it out, present the results of validity and reliability analyses, and describe the methods strengths and weaknesses.

Dash: a New Approach To Technology Education

DASH attacks problems of the elementary school identified in the early eighties by a wide array of organizations such as the National Commission on Excellence, American Chemical Society, American Institute of Physics, National Science Teachers Association, National Science Board, and others that have a stake in science. It addresses such problems as 1) integration of basic concepts of science, health, and technology, 2) activity-centered delivery of content, 3) incorporation of recent findings in cognitive psychology and child development, 4) evaluation, and 5) localization of materials discussed here. In addition, through its consortium mechanism, DASH works at long-term usership by providing training and follow-up coaching for teachers using the program.