Principles of self-evaluation efforts include the importance of maintaining a nonjudgmental orientation, soliciting views from the insider's perspective, and triangulating data. The most important techniques in self-evaluation are observation, interviewing, and participation. Important considerations in external evaluation include working with an external evaluator and understanding qualitative and quantitative approaches. Clear communication of evaluation findings is important for both internal and external evaluations. General evaluation guidelines and specific guidelines for evaluating gifted and talented education programs are given.
Appendices provide further explanation of evaluation components.
Monitoring to Ensure Needs of Gifted Students Are Met. Practitioners Guidelines for developing an evaluation plan for a gifted education program include recognizing the reluctance to spend money on evaluation, identifying what should be evaluated, deciding when programs should be reevaluated, determining overall evaluation principles, creating the evaluation design, and designing the evaluation plan to fit a specific program. To Improve Programs for the Gifted. Evaluation of gifted programs can help educators plan appropriate curriculum, enhance implementation, and judge program impact. Evaluating planning provides useful information for establishing need, justifying certain curricular approaches, and documenting the integration of services with the school program.