Center for School, Family, and Community

Research and Evaluation

Overview

ECC professional staff members have extensive knowledge and experience in conducting research and evaluation relating to GEAR UP programs, mentoring programs, Small Learning Communities, afterschool programs, service-learning, alternative education and charter schools.

ECC professional staff can help you:

  • Understand roles of evaluators relating to your program. Develop clear goals and measurable objectives that can be used to guide your program as well as the evaluation.
  • Learn how to develop the right evaluation questions relating to your program goals and objectives.
  • Systematically collect data from multiple sources and conduct both qualitative and quantitative analyses of the data collected to address your evaluation questions.
  • Use the evaluation process for capacity building and continuous quality improvement.
  • Use the evaluation process to articulate your program in terms of successes and challenges.
  • Use the evaluation process to study the effects of your program on its participants in short, medium, and long terms.
  • Collect data to meet your state grant requirements.

Examples of Our Evaluation Projects

  1. Anchorage 21st Century Community Learning Centers. For the past three years, we have worked with Anchorage School District (AK) to evaluate their 21st CCLC programs. This school year, site visits were conducted at eleven 21st CCLC sites. Visits included program observation, interviews with program staff, and focus groups with the site coordinators, parents, and students.
  2. Statewide GEAR UP Programs. We are working in Oregon and Montana to provide evaluation services for their statewide GEAR UP programs. GEAR UP is a six-year program designed to prepare low-income students for post-secondary education.
  3. Idaho Charter School Study. In partnership with the Idaho Department of Education, we are conducting a statewide landmark study on the growth and quality of charter schools over the past 10 years.
  4. Small Learning Communities. We are evaluating small learning communities (SLC) projects at Churchill High School (Eugene, OR), South Salem High School (Salem, OR), North Salem High School (Salem, OR), McKay High School (Salem, OR),and Hillsboro High School (Hillsboro, OR). SLCs aim at providing a personalized learning environments for students so as to increase academic rigor, relevance, and relationship between students and teachers as well as among students themselves.
  5. David Douglas School District Mentoring Program. We are conducting an evaluation of this program at one middle school and two elementary schools at David Douglas School in Portland, Oregon.

For questions relating to our research and evaluation services, please contact Dr. Changhua Wang at wangc@nwrel.org or call him at (503) 275-9567.