Evaluating a Regional Administrative Model

Using a stratified random sample and real-time virtual focus group sessions, we evaluated the regional administrative model, addressing personnel supervision, program direction, financial management, and administrative leadership. We concluded that the regional administrative model remains a highly charged topic, there is no common understanding of region, the efficiencies and effectiveness of county operations have improved, and minor differences exist among groups from areas with differing population densities only with regard to the topic of administrative leadership. Implications relate to using a mix of formal and informal communication approaches, avoiding the consequences of long-term environmental turbulence, vetting the model at all organizational levels, and pilot testing prior to statewide implementation

Oregon WoodFest: Assessing the Educational Impact

Oregon WoodFest had the goal of increasing awareness of Oregon citizens about the Oregon forest sector. The event featured two components: a continuing education course for architects and builders, and a public wood festival. This article reports the results of an assessment of the educational impact of Oregon WoodFest. Educational impact of Architectural Design with Wood was assessed using a post-test questionnaire and of the public festival using participant interviews. Results show that the CE course influenced participants\u27 intentions regarding their use of wood and that the public festival increased participants awareness of wood and the forest sector

Whole Systems Inquiry: Designing Large Educational Events

Whole systems inquiry (WSI) helps people see complex topics as functional activities with inputs, outputs, interactions, and performance of the system over time. The authors used WSI to design a national symposium with 800 attendees who responded to two questions at the end of 70 topical sessions. Responses were aggregated onto a mega-map, synthesized into themes, and drawn as an emerging system. Work groups compared emerging themes with national priorities while individual participants evaluated utility in their disciplinary programs. We conclude that large meetings can be designed as functional systems with participation, synthesis, and evaluation of intentional learning

A Cross-Taxonomic Comparison of Insect Responses to Grassland Management and Land-Use Legacies

Many species of plants and animals associated with grasslands are rare or declining due to habitat loss and degradation. Although grassland plants and insects evolved in the context of both grazing and fire, the appropriate use of grazing and fire has been debated among those concerned with protecting insect communities. We established an experiment to test insect responses to three grassland management treatments: (1) patch-burn graze (burning of spatially distinct patches and free access by cattle), (2) grazeand- burn (burning of entire tract with free access by cattle), and (3) burn-only. Because we expected that land-use legacies could also affect insect abundance and diversity, we evaluated effects of time since fire, grazing history, remnant history (remnant or reconstructed grassland) and pre-treatment vegetation characteristics, which were assumed to be a legacy of prior land-use. Butterflies (Lepidoptera), ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), and leaf beetles (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) were surveyed for three years to compare their responses to each of these treatments as measured by abundance, richness and species diversity. Each of these taxa is relatively diverse and was expected to have the potential to have strong negative responses to grazing and burning, but we predicted more positive responses to patch-burn grazing. Our results showed that land-use legacies affected insect abundance, richness and diversity, but treatments did not. Ant abundance was lower in tracts with a history of heavy grazing. Ant species richness was positively associated with pre-treatment time since fire and vegetation height and negatively associated with pre-treatment proportion native plant cover. Butterfly abundance was positively associated with pre-treatment litter cover. Leaf beetle diversity was positively associated with pre-treatment native plant cover, and leaf beetle abundance was negatively associated with time since fire. Our results indicate that land-use legacies can exert more influence on grassland insect community composition than current management, but the particular aspects of these land-use legacies that are important vary across insect taxa. The implications of these finding are that (1) land-use legacies should garner more attention in grassland management and (2) conservation of grassland insect communities will be improved by taxonspecific analysis of land-use legacy variables

Effects of disrupted family groups on the length of time in treatment for emotionally disturbed children

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FACTORS AFFECTING THE REDUCTION OF NARRATIVE DATA.

Narrative data enable evaluators to understand other people's viewpoints without predetermining those viewpoints by using preselected questionnaire categories. Narrative data yield rich detail, insight, and information. However, reducing narrative data into meaningful conclusions is difficult and time consuming, and requires attention, commitment, and skill on the part of trained coders. The personal and situational characteristics of the coders (called value inertia and cognitive limitation biases) affect data reduction. The effects of coder exposure to expected project outcomes and the level of coder research methodology sophistication were investigated. Coders considered either sophisticated or naive in research methodology were exposed to positive, ambiguous, or negative project outcome expectations. The coders reduced, or categorized, 25 open-ended interview response sets into previously established positive, negative, and ambiguous statement-type, content-code categories. The effectiveness of coder training was also explored by computing generalizability (reliability) coefficients. High generalizability coefficients were found, regardless of level of exposure to project outcome expectations. This indicates that coders were able to code the same statements the same way and is an indication of the coders' ability to reproduce the results. Results of this study also indicate that evaluators should use sophisticated coders for the reduction of narrative data, given that option. Sophisticated coders appear more resistant to the effect of exposure to project outcome expectations, coding narrative data more positively with less variability than naive coders when exposed to positive outcome expectations

New directions for program evaluation

Publ. comme no 62, summer 1994 de la revue New directions for program evaluationBibliogr. à la fin des textesIndex: p. 95-9

Theory and Rigor in Extension Program Evaluation Planning

This article examines two aspects of evaluation planning for Extension programs: the use of program theory and logic models and the decision process that affects the evaluation\u27s methodological rigor. First, Extension program planners should move beyond standard applications of logic modeling to incorporate a broader, more flexible use of program theory. Second, a highly rigorous evaluation will provide numerous benefits, but considering the costs that are typically required, an evaluation\u27s degree of rigor should be carefully determined with reference to how the findings will be used. The article makes recommendations with the aim of promoting effective and economical Extension evaluations

Gene Expression and Carcass Traits Are Different between Different Quality Grade Groups in Red-Faced Hereford Steers

Fat deposition is important to carcass value and some palatability characteristics. Carcasses with higher USDA quality grades produce more value for producers and processors in the US system and are more likely to have greater eating satisfaction. Using genomics to identify genes impacting marbling deposition provides insight into muscle biochemistry that may lead to ways to better predict fat deposition, especially marbling and thus quality grade. Hereford steers (16) were managed the same from birth through harvest after 270 days on feed. Samples were obtained for tenderness and transcriptome profiling. As expected, steaks from Choice carcasses had a lower shear force value than steaks from Select carcasses; however, steaks from Standard carcasses were not different from steaks from Choice carcasses. A significant number of differentially expressed (DE) genes was observed in the longissimus lumborum between Choice and Standard carcass RNA pools (1257 genes, p < 0.05), but not many DE genes were observed between Choice and Select RNA pools. Exploratory analysis of global muscle tissue transcriptome from Standard and Choice carcasses provided insight into muscle biochemistry, specifically the upregulation of extracellular matrix development and focal adhesion pathways and the downregulation of RNA processing and metabolism in Choice versus Standard. Additional research is needed to explore the function and timing of gene expression changes