013385 Evaluating Educational Practice

This subject offers students an introduction to the evaluation of educational programs and services. It offers an overview of how practitioners can improve their own practice either alone or with colleagues. The emphasis is on providing students with the skills to analyse the structure and operation of their work using small scale, local investigations. The subject reviews the available evaluation paradigms and follows the Program Evaluation Standards in defining evaluation as the systemic investigation of the merit or worth of some object. Case studies are used to emphasise the nature of educational evaluation and qualitative approaches are used to determine the merit of educational programs, policies and services for individuals and groups.