An Experiment to Test the Feasibility and Quality of a Web-Based Questionnair…

The use of web-based surveys to gather information from teachers has become increasingly common primarily based on the premise that they can reduce costs. Yet, relatively, little is known about the quality or cost effectiveness of web-based versus mail surveys for teachers. To study the efficacy of web-based teacher surveys, the author randomly assigned a nationally representative sample of 877…

How Consistent Are Class Size Effects?

Thus far researchers have focused on computing average differences in student achievement between smaller and larger classes. In this study, the author focus on the distribution of the small class effects at the school level and compute the inconsistency of the small class effects across schools. The author use data from Project STAR to estimate small class effects for each school on mathematic…

The Effect of a College Pen Incentive on Survey Response Rate Among Recent Co…

Incentives have shown a variable effect in improving survey response rates, but the effect of a pen from an organization to which the respondent has loyalty has not been studied. Recent college graduates were randomized to receive or not receive a college logo pen accompanying an initial survey mailing. Among 119 total respondents, there were no differences in response rate to the initial maili…

Aftershocks of Chile’s Earthquake for an Ongoing, Large-Scale Experimental …

Evaluation designs for social programs are developed assuming minimal or no disruption from external shocks, such as natural disasters. This is because extremely rare shocks may not make it worthwhile to account for them in the design. Among extreme shocks is the 2010 Chile earthquake. Un Buen Comienzo (UBC), an ongoing early childhood program in Chile, was directly affected by the earthquake. …

Evaluating Health Outcomes of Criminal Justice Populations Using Record Linka…

Individuals in contact with the criminal justice system are a key population of concern to public health. Record linkage studies can be useful for studying health outcomes for this group, but the use of aliases complicates the process of linking records across databases. This study was undertaken to determine the impact of aliases on sensitivity and specificity of record linkage and how this af…

Mandatory, Preferred, or Discretionary : How the Classification of Domestic V…

Edition

Vol. 35 no. 2, April 2011.pp. 129-152

ISBN/ISSN

0193841x

Collation

-

Series Title

Evaluation Review

Call Number

-

Evaluation of Free to Grow : Head Start Partnerships to Promote Substance-Fre…

Free to Grow: Head Start Partnerships to Promote Substance-free Communities (FTG) was a national initiative in which local Head Start (HS) agencies, in partnership with other community organizations, implemented a mix of evidence-based family-strengthening and community-strengthening strategies. The evaluation of FTG used a quasi-experimental design to compare 14 communities that participated i…

The Distinction between Public, Nonprofit, and For-Profit : Revisiting the â€â€¦

In studying the characteristics that determine the public, nonprofit, and/or for-profit nature of organizations, public administration scholarship has elaborated upon the “dimensional” approach (e.g., Bozeman, Barry. 2007. Public values and public interest: Counterbalancing economic individualism. Washington, DC: Georgetown Univ. Press), to the point where it is now furnishing a rich body of th…

Public Service Ethos : Developing a Generic Measure

This article conceptualizes public service ethos as a multidimensional construct and develops a framework that explains first, why individuals are motivated by this ethos (Public Service Belief); second, how they deliver public services in accordance with this ethos (Public Service Practice); and third, what ends they perceive it to endorse (Public Interest). Despite considerable interest in pu…

Managerial Trustworthiness and Organizational Outcomes

Using data from the Federal Human Capital Survey, we demonstrate that the managerial traits of competence, integrity, and benevolence share an important common dimension that we identify as the trustworthiness of managerial leadership (TWML). Using recursive hierarchical linear models, we demonstrate that levels of TWML are strongly and positively associated with several measures of perceived o…

The Publicness of Policy Environments : An Evaluation of Subprime Mortgage Le…

Previous evaluations of publicness have focused largely on organizations and organizational behavior. This analysis extends the applicability of publicness one step further, to consider the effect of the publicness of policy environments on resulting individual-level outcomes. Subprime or high-cost mortgage lending was an increasingly dominant strategy in the mid-2000s to deal with the uncertai…

Organizational Reform and Changing Ethics in Public Administration : A Case S…

Although ethics underlying public administration obviously changes over time, it remains largely unknown just how, when, or why this happens. This article presents a study on organizational reform in the system of taxation in Holland around 1748. Comparative use of Max Weber's characteristics of bureaucratization provides a historical perspective on the link between organizational reform and et…

Information, Interest Intermediaries, and Regulatory Compliance

This research examines the role of interest intermediaries in helping to promote environmental regulatory compliance with a particular focus on their activities to facilitate the sharing of regulatory information. Although it is widely accepted that the provision of regulatory information to regulatees is crucial to enhancing compliance, the ability of regulatees to take advantage of the inform…

Representation of Lesbians and Gay Men in Federal, State, and Local Bureaucra…

Using a 5% sample of the 2000 Census, we present the first estimates of the percentages of federal, state, and local government employees who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB). For each state, we estimate that percentage not only for its total state and local government workforce but also for three occupations where active representation of LGB interests may be the most important: managers, t…

A Behavioral Model of Innovative Search : Evidence from Public Hospital Services

This article examines the generative mechanisms and underlying contingencies of innovative search. Extending behavioral arguments to the public sector context, it proposes that changes in innovative activity reflect either of two organizational search processes. The first process, commonly known as problemistic search, is triggered by negative performance feedback and initiated to identify appr…

The Organization of Discipline : From Performance Management to Perversity an…

Drawing on participant observation, in-depth interviews, and statistical analysis of administrative data, this article explores the operation of performance management in the Florida Welfare Transition program and its effects on decisions to sanction welfare clients. Unlike most econometric research on welfare sanctions, we approach sanctioning as an organized practice that reflects, not just c…

Race, Respect, and Red Tape : Inside the Black Box of Racially Representative…

Racially representative bureaucracy theory suggests that black and Latino clients of street-level bureaucracies will uniformly experience the benefits of a racially diverse staff within these institutions and perceive it as working to their advantage. Conversely, street-level bureaucracy theory suggests that racial minorities working within these organizations are under massive constraints that…

Policy Work : Street-Level Organizations Under New Managerialism

Street-level organizations are pivotal players in the making of public policy. The importance of these organizations is reflected in new public management strategies that aim to influence how street-level organizations work, in part, by “steering” discretionary practices through performance-based incentives. The underlying assumptions are that if performance indicators provide the equivalent of…

Federal Advisory Committees, Policy Expertise, and the Approval of Drugs and …

Policy makers in the US federal government regularly consult advisory committees, but there is little systematic research on how committee advice influences executive branch policy making. We investigate the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) use of advisory committees when deciding whether or not to approve pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices for marketing. Specifically, using 1997–2006…

Does Stronger Political Leadership Have a Performance Payoff ? Citizen Satisf…

An influential literature in urban political and public management debates whether political leadership, in particular the form of council government in the United States, can improve policy and other outcomes by providing coordination, control, and facilitation. The article tests whether stronger political leadership affects citizen satisfaction through the direct connection of leaders to citi…