Monitoring Indicators and Tailoring Practice

Abstract

Another generalization emerging from our Pittsburgh work is that educational research that takes place within educational systems would profit greatly if the emphasis were shifted from discrete studies of particular programs, which generally fall under the rubric of program evaluation, to a continuous activity of data collection and analysis, which we refer to as monitoring and tailoring. Reform efforts in education have tended to assume that the best way to improve educational practice is to adopt a new program that seems to address a particular problem, implement that innovative program, and then evaluate the program to determine its effectiveness in dealing with the problem. Berman (1980) calls this the technological-experimental paradigm of educational change. (Portions of this chapter were adapted from Cooley, 1984a.)