Notes on Evaluation: Guidelines and Caveats

Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking is a professional development project for educators, the purpose of which is to provide participants with strategies for interactive methods of teaching that prepare pupils for citizenship in open societies. In its first three academic years, from 1997 to 2000, thousands of teachers completed RWCT training workshops in 24 countries throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

When a country first joins RWCT, four educators who have volunteered through the International Reading Association (IRA) travel to the host country to train 20 to 40 teachers to use RWCT strategies. These volunteers offer a series of four workshops over the course of 12 to 15 months. During that time, participating teachers practice the curriculum and adapt RWCT strategies based on individual circumstances.

Between workshops, RWCT participants meet monthly with colleagues to discuss progress in mastering RWCT strategies. They also receive feedback from peers and RWCT volunteers who observe their classroom teaching. After completing the entire RWCT course, first-year participants are expected to become trainers for future generations of RWCT teachers.

Sooner or later, anyone involved in program development must ask the question: Is this programme working? What data might help us understand our successes and the challenges that remain? What methods might we employ to gather useful information?

In April 2000, the Open Society Institute (OSI), funder of the RWCT project, commissioned the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to conduct an evaluation of the project. The OSI asked AIR to examine three research questions:

To what extent do RWCT teachers maintain the fidelity of the RWCT model in their teaching practices?
To what extent do pupils whose teachers participate in RWCT have higher critical thinking skills than pupils in a non-RWCT control group?
To what extent do RWCT teachers' and pupils' attitudes about teaching and learning differ from those of teachers and pupils in control groups?

The evaluation sought differences among pupils and teachers in RWCT classrooms and in control-group classrooms in four countries: the Czech Republic, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, and Macedonia. Findings from the evaluation indicate that participation in RWCT is positively and significantly associated with many aspects of teaching and learning.

... ... ...

SUBSCRIBE TO READ MORE!

Make a comment