Assessing the Impact of Educational Technology.

This paper focuses on the mechanics of assessing the impact of educational technology. The basics of program evaluation, research design, data collection and analysis, and report generation are covered to provide useful information to those responsible for program evaluation research and to decision makers, who are the usual recipients of evaluation reports. The proposed research models focus on the classroom as the location for data collection and analysis for both formative and summative evaluation. It is assumed that the educational technology is static to the classroom, while student movement across the campus is dynamic. Three exhibits contain templates that can be modified for use in research and evaluation studies. Exhibit 1 is the program evaluation template of suggested data elements for use in formative evaluation. Elements for data collection and analysis in summative evaluation make up Exhibit 2, and Exhibit 3 presents a list of suggested discussion items for producing a research/program evaluation report on educational technology. Contains 17 references on research methods, and 13 on statistical analysis. (SLD)