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Purpose: This paper examines implementation fidelity (IF) and the underpinning conceptual framework drawing on the evaluation of a UK-wide, manualized child abuse and neglect prevention program for elementary schools. We describe and assess our approach to assessing IF and consider how IF can inform program development. Method: We drew on the literature on program fidelity and critical components of the program evaluated to identify three dimensions of IF: Coverage, Quality and Context. Data was collected through external observations using systemized observation schedules which were extracted to be scored using scoring protocols for each intervention type. Scores were calculated by two researchers with a random sample cross-checked by a third member of the research team. Results: Observation analysis demonstrated consistency in the coverage of content when delivering assemblies for both younger and older children with at least 76% coverage of content across the assemblies. However, observation analysis revealed greater levels of variability in the delivery of workshops. Material on sexual abuse was less fully covered and children reported that some facilitators lacked confidence and clarity in delivering this material (Stanley et al., 2023). Conclusion: Our results indicate the usefulness of systemized observations in capturing coverage of content, these findings underscore the importance of developing scoring protocols and training observers prior to evaluating program delivery. We highlight the significance of integrating implementation fidelity training for program facilitators and implementers to both assist with monitoring and to maintain quality, despite variations in the actual delivery and setting of the program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies cover the impacts of applying game-based student response systems in higher education. Their general finding is that game approaches lead to higher level of commitment and motivation of users to activities and processes in which they are involved. This paper presents the results of our investigation, that is aimed to test this hypothesis among Computer Engineering bachelor students. For this reason, we have developed and applied Kahoot! quizzes in the lectures of two fundamental programming subjects in two consecutive academic years. This quantitative analysis shows how students’ attitude and results have changed as a consequence of applying our method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to better understand how academic health sciences library directors construct their understanding of effective leadership. After transcribing and performing thematic analysis on the interviews of eight academic health sciences library directors, five main themes emerged from the data: understanding leadership, building a vision, relationships are key, advocating and credibility, and measuring success. The findings suggest there are internal and external leadership responsibilities for library directors, both of which are important, however, the internal responsibilities are easier to delegate. Also, academic health sciences library directors need better evaluation methods for determining their effectiveness as leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Teaching with RRI methods makes a difference. This paper aims to evaluate the application of RRI tools in a CSR course. A course is considered effective when objectives, targeted skills, competences, and expected learning outcomes are communicated and reached. The focus of this research is understanding the impact of a specific international blocked course on the social and environmental sensitivity of students through the application of a mixed-method approach. Q-methodology was used to measure the preferences of students before and after the course regarding their individual behaviour and expectations towards companies. Interviews were conducted after the course to assess individual perceptions about the course and its teaching methods. Results suggest that the RRI approach in teaching is clearly appreciated by students, and its effectiveness is estimated as high. Changes in responsibility-related preference order reflect stronger and weaker impacts alike, helping identify effective RRI tools for teaching, as well as opportunities for further improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Research Note is a summary of the findings of a larger literature review of more than 200 publications on what their authors consider to be Measures of Effectiveness (MoEs) in Counter-Terrorism (CT) efforts and in Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programs. Specifically, the MoEs in CT and CVE interventions are examined in terms of how the literature discusses their outcome, Evidence gaps which need to be filled are identified, and recommendations for further research on these issues are made. The general objective is to identify findings that contribute to upgrading the effectiveness of the various communities involved in responding to terrorist threats and in understanding how to weaken the drivers of radicalization and recruitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. Government recently adapted U.S. policy, code, and joint doctrine to provide greater authorities to the Department of Defense to conduct Security Cooperation (SC). U.S. policy and law now requires increased transparency into the effects of these activities towards the achievement of U.S. national security objectives. In response to these changes, U.S. Special Operations Command should implement changes in education and training to improve the capacity of Special Operations Forces (SOF) to assess and plan for SC activities and to monitor and evaluate the results of these activities. SOF can enable greater fidelity through learning to develop objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). SOF can then link SMART objectives to planned "Theory of Change"-driven operational approaches and systematic assessment, monitoring, and evaluation methods to learn and adjust current and future SC activities to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of internal processes and activities, measure progress along SC lines of effort under execution, and better account for the return on investment reaped from their Security Cooperation lines of effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why should public relations (PR) not be evaluated for its economic value? Despite the point of its social or intangible values, the argument goes on and on in most management meetings where PR practitioners always face the challenges of justifying their worth – often in monetary terms. In an open dialogue with Grunig during his visit to Malaysia in 2004, this renowned PR guru also expressed the difficulty of quantifying the actual PR worth. It is best to qualify PR values by assessing its priceless relationships with the company’s stakeholders. However, in our routine business life, especially at the middle management level, the above question seems unavoidable. In enhancing excellence for PR and communication management, Ehling (1992) placed the logic underlying the economic values of PR on the relationship between benefits and costs associated with the implementation of a PR programme. The above question and problem serve as the main objective of this article. In exploring the solutions for the quantification of PR values in Malaysia, economic education is taken as a remedy for the absence of knowledge and skills in making intelligent decisions in the marketplace (Baskin et al., 1997; Lattimor et al., 2004). In this research context, the researchers (a combination of a practitioner and an academician respectively) confined the scope to the experience of a selected public-listed company for its PR campaign implemented in 2004. Quantification was attempted by evaluating the assessment in print media exposures. All earned media coverage for that particular PR campaign was measured for the media type, space, position, and the corresponding advertising rate. Monetary value was assigned to every single piece of PR news in the way disbursements are made to paid media for advertising activities. The explication of this advertising-value-equivalent (AVE) method in quantifying economic values for PR news with regard to the selected campaign was made possible with specially designed computer software. The report generated from the said software showed that the cumulative AVE was able to explain the return on expenditure (ROE) in order to carry out the said campaign. The propagation of the above AVE can be one of the many solutions to evaluate the economic worth of PR.

Teacher development programs have been part of the English speaking higher education landscape for over 40 years. There is now general agreement that teacher development programs have a positive impact on teachers and students, yet the extent and longevity of their impact on the culture of the discipline and the institutions are less well researched and evidenced. There is clearly a need for ongoing and rigorous research on the impact of teacher development programs that looks deeper and beyond the teachers who participate in the programs. The focus of this paper is to draw on the English research and literature to identify the impact and effectiveness of teacher development programs and activities and propose a framework for the systematic measurement and collection of information on the effectiveness of these programs. It is argued that these measures and indicators need to move from the research paradigm to the evaluation paradigm so that they can inform ongoing and future teacher development programs and enhancement. Programs from the planning stage should be designed to build an evidence base that will enable researchers and practitioners to ask more complex questions on where and on whom the programs have an impact, and why they have impact.

Teacher development programs have been part of the English speaking higher education landscape for over 40 years. There is now general agreement that teacher development programs have a positive impact on teachers and students, yet the extent and longevity of their impact on the culture of the discipline and the institutions are less well researched and evidenced. There is clearly a need for ongoing and rigorous research on the impact of teacher development programs that looks deeper and beyond the teachers who participate in the programs. The focus of this paper is to draw on the English research and literature to identify the impact and effectiveness of teacher development programs and activities and propose a framework for the systematic measurement and collection of information on the effectiveness of these programs. It is argued that these measures and indicators need to move from the research paradigm to the evaluation paradigm so that they can inform ongoing and future teacher development programs and enhancement. Programs from the planning stage should be designed to build an evidence base that will enable researchers and practitioners to ask more complex questions on where and on whom the programs have an impact, and why they have impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- Public libraries can benefit from understanding the perspectives of various stakeholders leading to the development of measures for decision making and competing for funding as well as demonstrating accountability. The purpose of this paper is to examine library effectiveness from the perspective of multiple stakeholders from a list of indicators pertinent to today and to determine which are most important to a constituency of a single library and any differences among the various constituencies. Design/methodology/approach -- A survey that listed indicators of effectiveness for a public library was given to four stakeholder groups of a city library: employees, library board, library foundation members, and the public. Findings -- Of the 51 indicators, 39 comprised eight dimensions of effectiveness under the labels of: user experience, facility, digital collection, social media and board, community use, employees, administration, and collection management. The number of statistically significant differences was greatest between the library board and the public as well as the employees and the public. Originality/value -- Indicators of public library effectiveness have not been updated for the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purposes of this study are to investigate the factors that could affect player salaries in Major League Soccer (MLS) and to look at the relationship between player salaries, performances and the quest for success. This study deals with three main research questions: (1) What are factors that affect player salaries? (2) What are factors that influence players’ performance? (3) How are player salaries distributed among players? Using four different regression analysis methods, the number of goals, number of assists and minutes of play variables are confirmed as key determinants of player salaries. Results of income distribution imply that more equal income distribution amongst players is more likely to produce relatively high performance in team success. Some key managerial issues in MLS – such as the star player effect and measuring effectiveness – are also addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A key assumption in efforts to implement and improve cross-government public reporting systems is that legislators will make use of the performance information to enhance accountability and improve program and policy effectiveness. This five-year study is an assessment of expectations and actual uses of annual performance reports by elected decision-makers in British Columbia, Canada. Our findings from three anonymous surveys indicate that while the legislators had high initial expectations, actual usage—measured in two follow-up surveys—showed substantial drops from expectations. Our findings are consistent with a growing body of evidence that there may be a paradox at the core of the public performance reporting movement: public reporting of targeted performance measures, although it may improve symbolic accountability, undermines the usefulness of the reported performance information for performance management. These findings have implications for jurisdictions using whole of government performance measurement and reporting systems for these dual purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Effective Knowledge Management (KM) is an important process for handling information which is essential for implementing successful projects and making improvement to the knowledge-based economy. KM deals with how knowledge is produced, shared in a secure manner, and used by organizations or individual for the benefit of the economy. Sharing of information and knowledge as well as providing the relevant financial support are among the main success factors for creating innovations, while protecting the Intellectual property (IP) satisfies the requirement for sharing of knowledge fairly and preserving the right of the inventors. In order to achieve an effective KM that contributes to the overall knowledge economy, there should be a proper way to measure it according to well known set of criteria. In this paper an analytical method has been devised based on different performance indicators to verify the availability of useful knowledge which is linked to successful knowledge investment and its business continuity. Unlike other methods that focus on descriptive approach, the proposed analytical method relies on qualitative approach that is based on how the probability of the knowledge factors can occur in a certain environment in relation to the set of goals that have been identified for a certain organization. This new method would allow managers to evaluate the performance of knowledge based economy of different organizations and assist them in identifying the reason for lacking economy growth, and therefore plan for improvement. Another way for measuring the effectiveness of a fair partnership model can rely on a direct method using a statistical survey to collect the statistical data that can help in identifying obstacles in reaching the organization's goals. An example for measuring the effectiveness of fair partnership has been described in this paper by using a survey which has been conducted to evaluate projects that are running in Saudi Arabia in order to understand the difficulties in attracting funds through a Venture Capital program, so the proper solutions can be recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing recognition of the value of measuring fidelity of implementation (FOI) as a necessary part of evaluating interventions. However, evaluators do not have a shared conceptual understanding of what FOI is and how to measure it. Thus, the creation of FOI measures is typically a secondary focus and based on specific contexts and programs. This article describes a project that holds the development of FOI measures as its primary goal and has developed a suite of data collection tools designed to be used across multiple programs. It describes the foundation of the suite--a conceptual framework for clearly and specifically describing FOI and the need for the framework. It also describes where the framework resides in existing literature and how it can be used to support measurement of interventions in education and other fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why should public relations (PR) not be evaluated for its economic value? Despite the point of its social or intangible values, the argument goes on and on in most management meetings where PR practitioners always face the challenges of justifying their worth - often in monetary terms. In an open dialogue with Grunig during his visit to Malaysia in 2004, this renowned PR guru also expressed the difficulty of quantifying the actual PR worth. It is best to qualify PR values by assessing its priceless relationships with the company's stakeholders. However, in our routine business life, especially at the middle management level, the above question seems unavoidable. In enhancing excellence for PR and communication management, Ehling (1992) placed the logic underlying the economic values of PR on the relationship between benefits and costs associated with the implementation of a PR programme. The above question and problem serve as the main objective of this article. In exploring the solutions for the quantification of PR values in Malaysia, economic education is taken as a remedy for the absence of knowledge and skills in making intelligent decisions in the marketplace (Baskin et al., 1997; Lattimor et al., 2004). In this research context, the researchers (a combination of a practitioner and an academician respectively) confined the scope to the experience of a selected public-listed company for its PR campaign implemented in 2004. Quantification was attempted by evaluating the assessment in print media exposures. All earned media coverage for that particular PR campaign was measured for the media type, space, position, and the corresponding advertising rate. Monetary value was assigned to every single piece of PR news in the way disbursements are made to paid media for advertising activities. The explication of this advertising-value-equivalent (AVE) method in quantifying economic values for PR news with regard to the selected campaign was made possible with specially designed computer software. The report generated from the said software showed that the cumulative AVE was able to explain the return on expenditure (ROE) in order to carry out the said campaign. The propagation of the above AVE can be one of the many solutions to evaluate the economic worth of PR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]