Formative Evaluation of Gifted Programs: A Process and Model

Abstract

The authors suggest that the recent focus on excellence in public education will lead to an increase in the evaluation of gifted programs. They maintain that evaluation of gifted programs should be formative, as opposed to summative, because gifted programming serves a valuable social need. The authors describe the process that evaluators go through to conduct a program evaluation, and then present their program evaluation model. Two approaches are integrated in their model. First, process-oriented evaluation defines essential program components and standards of acceptance. Second, outcome-oriented evaluation assesses components via student outcomes. Both approaches are described and suggestions are given for their use.