Your Evaluation Project may be initiated as soon as you have taken IP&T 661.

The evaluation project is designed to help the student apply information acquired through coursework and reading to actual evaluation settings. Additionally, the project allows the student to assume at least some of the responsibility for conduct of an actual evaluation. The evaluation report and comprehensive exam should be written and submitted together as one document. Procedural instruction for meeting the Evaluation and Comprehensive Exam requirements are described below.

STEP 1: Faculty Sponsor
STEP 2: Enroll for IP&T 667R
STEP 3: Prepare Your Project
STEP 4: Complete the Project
STEP 5: The Written Report
STEP 6: Faculty Sponsor Evaluation and Final Grade
STEP 7: Comprehensive Exam
Prospectus Approval Form

A student desiring to complete an Evaluation project must identify a suitable project in consultation with a faculty member and obtain the consent of the faculty member to serve as their sponsor for the project. In most instances, a student will co-author the evaluation report with the faculty sponsor. The sponsor may or may not be a member of the student's committee.

Enroll for three hours of IP&T 667R credit the semester the work is to be completed.

1. Prepare a prospectus - Prepare a prospectus describing the proposed evaluation and submit a copy to the Department Chair, along with the Prospectus Approval Form signed by the faculty sponsor (see p. 4). The Prospectus and Approval Form must be submitted to the Department Chair before the work is begun, and no later than the second week of the semester in which the work is to be completed.
   
   NOTE: It is desirable that students determine what their Evaluation project will deal with during the latter part of the semester prior to the semester in which they will work on the project.
   
   Students should retain a copy of the Prospectus Approval Form in their own files.
   
   
2. Must be a defensible effort - In some instances a project will be the outgrowth of one of the two evaluation courses (IP&T 661 or 761) or an Internship. When this is the case, steps should be taken to ensure that the effort is defensible in terms of the three hours credit that are awarded for the project. This is accomplished by establishing, in writing, that the two activities are going to be combined and by having the joint effort approved by the faculty sponsor and the Department chair in advance.
   
   It is not permissible to be awarded course or Internship credit and project credit for the same activity unless the total time devoted to the activity is commensurate with the total amount of credit being awarded and approved by the faculty sponsor. Double credit is not permissible.
   
   The Evaluation and Comprehensive Exam requirement may be challenged by making a formal request in writing to the Department Chair and by submitting an Evaluation Report written prior to entering the program along with supporting documentation as described in Step 5. Such reports will undergo the same faculty review as those which received advance approval.
   
   
3. Funding - The Instructional Psychology & Technology Department does not provide direct financial support for projects. However, the student's time and expenses related to a project may be funded by a sponsoring faculty member or agency. If a student is unable to find a sponsor who is able to fund the project, the costs must be borne by the student.
   
   
4. Schedule - Successfully completing the Evaluation Project is a necessary step in qualifying for doctoral candidacy; therefore, students cannot begin formal work on a dissertation before the requirement is met. However, informal work (reading, assembling related research, pilot studies, etc.) is encouraged as early as possible in the program.

After the approval of the prospectus, the student may proceed with the evaluation project under the supervision of the faculty sponsor. The student will submit those documents required by the faculty sponsor. The faculty sponsor will provide the criteria for each required document.

When a member of the faculty agrees to serve as a sponsor for an evaluation project, he agrees to provide the student individual consultation regarding the project on a regular basis and to review the student's work systematically. How the evaluation project is accomplished is left up to the discretion of the faculty sponsor. The only stipulation is that the faculty sponsor agrees to review whatever the student writes in connection with the project. At the outset of the project, the faculty member and the student should determine specifically what the sub-tasks are going to be and agree on deadlines for completing each sub-task. The schedule in the prospectus should reflect these deadlines.

Once the student has carried out the above requirements, the actual report should be submitted to the faculty sponsor. The report should include at least the following:

1. Background information, literature and other contextual information relevant to the evaluation.
2. Stakeholders, audiences, and/or other information users who care about the evaluand and its evaluation.
3. The evaluand or thing to be evaluated as defined by the stakeholders.
4. Purposes, issues, concerns, information needs, or questions asked by the stakeholders that are to be answered by the evaluation.
5. Criteria and standards the stakeholders have for judging the evaluand.
6. Design and procedures followed in the evaluation to answer the stakeholders' questions, including information to be collected, selection of samples, the calibration and inclusion of data collection instruments and/or procedures, resources and personnel used.
7. Description of the data analyses and interpretations for each question.
8. Results and recommendations of the evaluation and how they are being shared with the stakeholders.
9. A critique specifying the strengths and weaknesses of the evaluation and describing how it could be improved given greater time and resources. This critique should refer to relevant literature, particularly to metaevaluation standards that are published and appropriate.
10. Compare the actual schedule with the proposed schedule and note reasons for discrepancies.
11. Compare the actual costs with the proposed budget and note reasons for discrepancies.

See the Evaluation Checklist [Word] for a more detailed outline of the Evaluation Proposal or Report

When the faculty sponsor is satisfied the student has demonstrated sufficient originality and quality in the evaluation report, he will sign the attached evaluation report (see p. 5) verifying the student has satisfied the Evaluative requirements.

The student will then submit two copies of the final project, along with the faculty sponsor evaluation report to the Department Secretary. The Department Secretary will then send the project out to two additional readers for review (see Step 7). The student will receive a final grade for the project after the project passes these two readers. The sponsor and readers will each grade the project, the final grade will be an average of the three grades received. The grade will not be submitted to the Records Office until this Comprehensive Exam has been passed.

The completed project documents will be submitted by the Department Secretary to two additional IP&T faculty members for their evaluation. The reviewers should judge the quality of the project and Comprehensive Exam in terms of the criteria listed on the Faculty Evaluation Report form (see page 5). (Note that these reviewers are not required to judge the originality of the work, or determine if the project requirements have been met. This is the responsibility of the sponsor. However, they are required to review the quality of all aspects of the project as outlined on the Faculty Evaluation form.) The results of these evaluations will be submitted on the Evaluation of Examination Form (56) to the Department Chair.

The Evaluation Project Prospectus Approval Form can be downloaded here:

Word Format (.doc)