Product Description

Bringing together the expertise of top evaluation leaders from around the world, The SAGE International Handbook of Educational Evaluation addresses methods and applications in the field, particularly as they relate to policy- and decision-making in an era of globalization. The comprehensive collection of articles in the Handbook compels readers to consider globalization influences on educational evaluation within distinct genres or families of evaluation approaches.

Key Features

• Discusses substantive issues surrounding globalization, and its implication for educational policy and practice and ultimately evaluation;
• Includes state-of-the-art theory chapters and method chapters within scientific, accountability-oriented, learning-oriented, and political genres of evaluation approaches;
• Provides real-world case exemplar chapters to illustrate core concepts within genres;
• Extends dialogue on controversial topics and contemporary educational evaluation tensions in the context of globalization;
• Summarizes, by means of an integration chapter, the issues, tensions and dilemmas confronting educational evaluators in an era of globalization.

Serving as a state-of-the-art resource on educational evaluation, this volume is designed for graduate students, evaluation scholars and researchers and professional evaluation practitioners with an interest in educational program and policy evaluation.

Product Description
Mostly Monsters presents a collection of cla ssic monster tales adapted for a young audience. Included ar e stories by Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, and Ambrose Bie rce, as well as Mary Shelley''s classic Frankenstein and the story of Beowulf. 'Amazon.com Review
Frankenstein's Monster, the Jabberwocky, and a motley crew ofvarious other spooks and freaks join together in Steven Zorn'sMostly Monsters.These classic and contemporary tales havebeen adapted by Zorn for a younger audience--but they do not lose anyof their spine-tingling appeal in the process. Not all monsters arenasty--but the problem is, you never know who is bad and who is gooduntil it's too late! Bright illustrations of large-teethed dragons,man-eating trees, and crazed robots make this a fun and imaginativeread. (Ages 9-12) --Naomi Gesinger ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Several classic horror stories retold in simple English
This is an excellent book for children who like monster stories.One ofthe best of the stories is the translation of Beowulf, which is actuallyquite a great story.Beowulf is a great one to read to kids having asleepover or camping out.It has a great Chinese story about a greatpainter, an excellent story based on Frankenstein, and many other good onesincluding Jabberwocky (in original English, of course).The artwork isunique and very good. ... Read more

Product Description
A casebook that describes the varied analytical techniques and substantive applications that typify how statistical thinking has been applied to RAND over the past two decades. DLC: Policy sciences--Methodology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

nice collection of articles representative of RAND's work in public policy
Sally Morton and John Rolph edited and contributed to this collection of case studies of public policy issues that were conducted by the Economics and Statistics Group at the RAND Corporation. Sally is the current head of the group and John is a former head who is now a department chairman at the University of Southern California. The statistics group at RAND has a celebrated history for excellent and unbiased analyses of public policy data. As an organization they have existed since 1976 but individuals from the group had an impact even early. For example, Bill Rogers was part of the famous Princeton robustness study (published in 1972) while he was employed at RAND.
Many of the leaders of this group have participated in writing these studies including several who have moved on to careers elsewhere (e.g. Bob Bell, now at AT&T Labs - Research; John Rolph, now at USC; Jim Hodges, now at University of Minnesota; and Carl Morris, now at Harvard University).

Those currently at RAND who have contributed include Allan Abrahamse, John Adams, Phyllis Ellickson, Lionel Galway, Catherine Jackson, Dan McCaffrey, Sally Morton and Dan Relles. This is a mix of very seasoned RAND statisticians along with some junior members and colleagues. Several members of the group did not contribute to the case studies but well could have. I was particularly surprised at the absence of Naihua Duan who is an ASA fellow and has contributed to major health studies at RAND. Naihua has also been responsible for innovations while at RAND including contributions to sliced inverse regression and transformation "smearing" methods.

Nevertheless, the collection of studies are both interesting and important to the public and in several cases the findings go counter to the popular information in the media. Well-known Stanford Statistics Professor Brad Efron calls the media statements "misinformation" and "disinformation" and claims that RAND gets it right in his foreward to the book. Many Stanford students and colleagues of Efron had careers at RAND including Bob Bell, Naihua Duan, Carl Morris, Bill Rogers and Sally Morton.

There are a total of 10 case studies included. The first three are categorized as primarily addressing the collection of data (addressing issues in the design phase). The next three are considered to be primarily addressing the detection of effects (estimation or hypothesis testing aspects of statistical analysis) and the last four are considered to emphasize the understanding of relationships.

I have skimmed through all ten case studies and have read case numbers 3, 4, 5 and 7 in detail. The topics are as follows: 1. School-Based Drug Prevention by Bell and Ellickson. 2. The Health Insurance Experiment by Morris and Hill. 3. Counting the Homeless by Abrahamse. 4. Periodicity in the Global Mean Temperature Series? by Adams, Hammitt and Hodges. 5. Racial Bias in Death Sentencing by Morton and Rolph. 6. Malpractice and the Impaired Physician by McGuigan and Rolph. 7. Supply Delays for F-14 Jet Engine Repair Parts by Galway. 8. Hospital Mortality Rates by Thomas and Rolph. 9. Eye-Care Supply and Need by Relles, Jackson and Lee. 10. Modeling Block Grant Formulas for Substance Abuse Treatment by McCaffrey and Adams.

Analysis in #3 indicates that there are only about 400 homeless in Orange County as opposed to public estimates and claims of 4000 or more. Results in #4 indicate that the data are inconclusive regarding a global warming effect. In #5 both logistic regression and tree classification methods are used to show no clear bias in death sentencing based on the race of the victim. In #7 careful analysis of the data reveal that transporting supplies is the key factor in delays for getting repair parts for the engines and not the slow procurement process.

As an applied statistician who does a fair amount of consulting, I always find good case studies to be enlightening and helpful to me in my practice of statistics. These articles are very good and enlightening and they follow a common format. They start with an executive summary that provides an overview and the bottom line results. This is followed by an introductory section and then a section describing the study design, data collection, data sources and elements. The third section deals with datafile creation, descriptive statistics and exploratory data analysis. The fourth section covers statistical methods and models used. The fifth section gives results. Section 6 is a discussion section which may include summary, possible future extensions of the analysis, and conclusion and recommendations. The final section provides exercises. This last section is excellent for a course based on the case studies as it tests the student knowledge based on material learned in the case study. Sometimes self-contained problems are given but in other cases the reader is referred to the casebook web page at the RAND web site where data sources can be found to do the exercises.

In practical work I have always found that a clear understanding of the problem and good descriptive statistics and/or graphics are far more important than the particular method of analysis (which
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A must-have anthology
Poems to make you cry and feel and think and shiver and clasp the hands of your loved ones, never to let them go. At once both thought-provoking and profoundly emotional. I doff my cap to the editor. ... Read more

Product Description
Spooky or funny, surprising or frightening, SHOCK SHOP is a collection of brand new novels by some of the greatest names in children's writing. WICKED CHICKENS Charlie's Dad wins at Bingo and at last his dream can come true - a cottage with roses at the door and chickens scratching in the yard, laying lovely brown eggs...or so he thinks. It's a disaster! The family ends up having to rent and their four 'dream' chickens are scrawny, bad-tempered things. And suddenly, instead of four, there are ten. And the next day fifteen. They start pecking at the windows, staring in with their beady eyes. And then there are twenty chickens...twenty-five...thirty...The wicked chickens have come home to roost! ... Read more

Product Description

This book’s thirteen contributions bring together the results of recent research on determinants of regional specialization, growth, and convergence in the context of European integration. They offer fresh theoretical and empirical evidence on patterns of regional production structures, specialization, regional disparities, convergence and divergence processes, and evaluation of cohesion policies on both current and future European Union (EU) member states in the context of increased integration. These subjects are addressed in both individual and cross-country analysis using innovative methodologies. They examine structural changes and economic performance differentials across regions and countries in an enlarged EU as well as on evaluating existing policies aimed at reducing economic imbalances.

This unique empirical analysis uses data sets in particular from the EU accession countries, and it presents for the first time in a unified framework theoretical foundations and empirical results of models used in the evaluation of cohesion politics. The evaluation of cohesion policies in Ireland is used as a benchmark to compare recent evaluation experiences with models in Estonia, Hungary, and Poland.

Integration, Growth and Cohesion in an Enlarged European Union will be of particular interest to researchers and policy makers working in the fields of economic integration, transition economies, and regional development.

Product Description
The letters assembled in this volume are daily letters from Ruskin to his father, written from Venice in 1851-52. The letters form sort of a dairy of Ruskin's activities and thoughts. ... Read more

Product Description
Includes 4 pages of coloured maps and plates 410 mm x 305 mm; 6 pages of black-and-white maps and plates and 28 pages of text 410 mm x 305 mm. ... Read more

Product Description
Focuses on the stabilization and growth problems of Ireland, an archetypal peripheral member of the EC. A supply-side neo-Keynesian macroeconomic model of the country is developed, followed by a review of modern fiscal policy issues. ... Read more

Product Description
Business Objectives offers controlled grammar practice, systematic teaching of relevant vocabulary, and challenging activities that encourage students to use their own business experience.
A Pairwork Activity Book provides extended speaking practice. ... Read more

Product Description
Founded as an Early Christian settlement in the 6th century, Ireland's foremost medieval town, Kilkenny, is one of contrasts - of ancient and modern, of Irish and European culture, of city and provincial town. Part one explores the history of Kilkenny though key events, including: the founding of the Early Christian monastery, the coming of the Normans, the witchcraft trial of Alice Kyteler, the Statutes of Kilkenny, the Confederation of Kilkenny, the Cromwellian siege, the growth of industries in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the developments in design and brewing during the 20th century. Part two visits Kilkenny's most interesting buildings and landmarks, including: Kilkenny Castle, St Canice's Cathedral, Rothe House, Shee Almshouse, Kyteler's Inn, the Tholsel, St Mary's Church, the Black Abbey and Kilkenny College, where Jonathon Swift, George Berkeley and William Congreve were educated. ... Read more