Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory

World-Class Education Services for Local Needs

Evaluation and Research Services

The Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory provides a variety of evaluation and research services. Research and evaluation are effective tools to help organizations improve existing programs or develop new ones.

Evaluation Services

NWREL's professional evaluators have many years of experience delivering high-quality evaluation services designed to help organizations measure and improve the impact of their programs. The diversity of NWREL's work allows evaluators to collaborate with content experts from throughout the Laboratory to provide evaluation services in many different areas. NWREL provides program evaluations that comply with federal or state mandates for program accountability and works with clients to understand their organization's current condition, improve existing programs, develop new programs, support continued improvement, and document results. In addition, NWREL provides technical assistance to help clients build, manage, understand, use, and communicate information about their programs.

The information NWREL provided is helping us in our ability to provide a range of options for instruction, particularly related to our underachieving population.

—Evaluation program director, Washington school district

Services include:

  • Program planning
  • Grant-writing assistance
  • Instrument development, survey design, and measurement models
  • Data collection, analysis, and presentation
  • Formative evaluation (feedback and consultation to improve outcomes)
  • Summative evaluation (measurement and documentation of program impact)
  • Development of program management databases and Web integration
  • Development of reports and presentations to convey findings to multiple audiences

NWREL's portfolio of recent work includes:

  • Evaluation of reading programs, including Reading First and Reading Excellence
  • Research and evaluation on educational technology and distance education projects and programs
  • Language and literacy research and development, including effective American Indian and Alaska Native educational practices
  • Teaching American History project evaluations
  • Mathematics and science evaluations, including museum studies and other informal science education studies
  • Evaluation of school reform models, including Smaller Learning Communities
  • Assessing program and curriculum effectiveness for achieving Adequate Yearly Progress

For general information about how program evaluation works, consult our overview, Program Evaluation: An Introduction at www.nwrel.org/evaluation/overview.shtml.

Web Site

www.nwrel.org/evaluation/services.shtml

Research Services

NWREL's Research Unit includes staff members with extensive experience in research design, statistical analysis and interpretation, and presentation of scientific data and findings. The Research Unit also provides consultation services for the design and implementation of research projects using existing or new sources of data and helps clients interpret and apply research findings of existing studies.

Examples of assistance NWREL's Research Unit provides:

  • Clarifying questions of policy or practice
  • Identifying research designs to answer particular questions
  • Aligning policy questions with research designs and data analysis techniques
  • Identifying existing bodies of knowledge and research tools from different disciplines that can be combined to address questions of interest
  • Achieving the best research designs or data analyses given fiscal or practical constraints
  • Planning the details of research or evaluation projects such as measurement models, sampling techniques, and sample sizes needed for adequate statistical sensitivity, data collection and data management tools, and data analysis frameworks
  • Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of specific research studies, and extracting the most scientifically defensible and practically useful information from them
  • Summarizing and synthesizing the findings from bodies of research on particular topics
  • Communicating research findings to audiences of varying levels of technical expertise, using language and presentation styles that are technically accurate as well as engaging and effective

For additional information, visit the Center for Research, Evaluation, and Assessment Web site at www.nwrel.org/crea/.

Web Site

www.nwrel.org/research/services.shtml

Contact:

Ann Rader
800-547-6339, ext. 588
Send her an e-mail