Despite the recent calls made by scholars in the evaluation field regarding the importance of evaluation policy and its influence on evaluation practice, there remains a lack of empirical evidence pertaining to the relationship between evaluation policy and evaluation capacity building (ECB). This study sought to explore the role of evaluation policy in building, or in impeding, organizational capacity to do and use evaluation. Through three interconnected studies—a review of an extensive sample of evaluation policies; interviews with scholars and practitioners from Canada, the United States, and Europe; and focus groups held with evaluation community members in Jordan and Turkey—the research identified a set of 10 categories of evaluation policy and proceeded to develop and validate an ecological framework depicting the relationship between evaluation policy and organizational capacity to do and use evaluation. The findings suggest that the role of evaluation policy in building organizational capacity for evaluation is moderated by a number of variables operating at the contextual, organizational and individual levels and that an in-depth understanding of the dynamic, unfolding and ongoing connections between ECB, on the one hand, and the broader social, economic, political and cultural systems associated with an organization, on the other, is essential in focusing ECB efforts. While the findings reveal that the role of evaluation policy in leveraging organizational evaluation capacity has been limited, they also show some evidence that if an evaluation policy is carefully designed to privilege learning as a central and desirable function of evaluation it will be more likely to have a positive influence on the organizational capacity to do and use evaluation. The investigation helps to advance understanding of these connections and provides some insight into the components of evaluation policies and the role that they might play in shaping the future of evaluation practice. This thesis makes an important contribution to the body of knowledge on organizational evaluation capacity. Although much has been published in the evaluation literature on ECB, its relationship to evaluation policy has not been explored or described based on empirical data. The main practical implication of the research is the possibility for organizations seeking to develop evaluation policies that are ECB-oriented to use the ecological framework and the set of evaluation policy categories as guides. Similarly, organizations that are seeking to review and update their current policies to make them more ECB-friendly stand to benefit in this way. Future research may focus on expanding the scope of the framework and its applicability for different types of organizations in different contexts. Finally, it is argued that the development of policies designed to promote learning is a necessary step towards the advancement of evaluation practice.

M.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract.

In the context of sustainable development, evaluations have particularly high relevance as complex issues have to be dealt with generally over an extended period of time. Furthermore, there is a growing demand to evaluate against the concept of sustainable development. Especially evaluations with sustainable development are a rather new type of evaluation, as the source of its evaluation questions and the criteria applied are rooted in the concept of sustainable development. Sustainability of a specific project or process is often highly case specific as sustainable development is determined by many often unique issues. However, evaluations would be highly inefficient, if they would have to be newly designed in every case. Thus it is necessary to determine and utilize the major issues for evaluations with sustainable development. This paper is part of a series of three papers - which can be used independently - that present the major common issues for evaluations with sustainable development in a Tool Box. The results presented here are based on outcomes of a research project funded by the "Austrian Science Fund". This paper includes the "strategic orientation tool", which was developed as a tool for reflection and decision upon the general outline of an evaluation with sustainable development. It helps to define a design- frame with respect to its information-focus, scope and utilization. The core of the tool is a matrix that is based on two key- functions. On the one hand it defines which contents should be assessed: "What is the object of evaluation?". On the other hand it is oriented along the actual utilization of the evaluation: "How the gained results of the evaluation should be communicated and to whom?". (author's abstract) / Series: Research Paper Series of the Research Focus Managing Sustainability

This paper studies the quality of synthetic speech produced by integrated circuit (IC) hardware using fixed-point arithmetic and Linear Predictive Coding (LPC). A theoretical model explaining the combined effects of finite wordlength and parametric model order is developed. This model is used to predict the results obtained in the experimental phase of this study. In the experimental phase, selected model utterances are synthesized under finite wordlength constraints using LPC parameters. The synthetic speech is evaluated in terms of the log area ratios which define objective speech quality as a parametric distance. A theoretical model is developed to predict the experimental results. Simulations of this model produce data that predict the experimental results. The same information is extracted from the model as that obtained from actually running the fixed-point synthesizer simulator. Since the predictions of the theoretical model agree quite well with the experimental measurements, it is concluded that fixed-point synthesizer performance can be predicted without actually running a complicated and expensive fixed-point synthesizer. Secondly, results obtained from either method clearly indicate that for 15 or 16 bits, ten is the best number of poles to use. Eight useable poles are indicated for 14 bits, while seven are indicated for 13 bits. Based on the results of this study, the use of less than 13 bits for fixed-point calculations is not recommended.

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Masters in Business Administration (MBA), Business Studies Unit, Durban University of Technology in the Faculty of Commerce, 2008 / The conditions for doing business are changing rapidly. In the last decade, the resin market has witnessed a substantial growth and rapid changes globally as well as domestically. Customer satisfaction is a critical issue in the success of any business system, hence, one of the key challenges of this market is how to satisfy and retain their customers. This issue is strongly related to how service quality is managed and which holds a significant importance to customers’ satisfaction and their perceived performance of companies. In order for companies to survive and grow, they must find new ways of thinking, which has led to doing marketing researches, especially those related to customer satisfaction. In this study, the SERVQUAL model was employed to establish the customers’ perceptions versus their expectations of service quality at Cray Valley Resins. Both primary and secondary data were used to inform this particular research. The research was quantitative in nature and conducted in the form of a self-administered survey. The type of study used was the cross-sectional analytical survey method. The summary of the findings reveals that the dimensions with the highest expectation were tangibles followed by responsiveness. Coincidently these two dimensions also had the largest gap scores. The overall mean gap score (-0.326) is relatively small. Thus, it can be concluded that although the customers hold a good opinion of the quality of the services provided, expectations of the services were higher.

A consumer and a trained descriptive panel was utilized to determine liking ratings and flavor profiles, respectively, for commercial brands of pre-stirred yogurt. Once the consumer and descriptive panel data was collected, the data was combined to determine the interrelationship of these two sets of data and to determine the conditions necessary to optimize the sensory characteristics of commercial yogurt. This study was broken down into two parts: (1) evaluation by a 90 to 182 member consumer panel and an 11 member descriptive panel for 14 strawberry and 6 lemon yogurt brands, and (2) correlation of the sensory measures of sweetness and sourness, and analytical measures of sugars and acids for 14 strawberry, 12 raspberry, 6 lemon, and 17 plain yogurt brands. Large sensory differences were found between yogurts for both flavors (strawberry and lemon) by both panels. Correlation and principal component analysis (PCA) indicated that two distinct groups of descriptors contributed to the liking of the yogurts: one associated with the fruity and sweetness characteristics, and the other related to the plain yogurt and sourness descriptors. Consumers based their overall liking ratings on fruit flavor, sweetness, sourness, and a balance of sweetness/sourness liking. Males and females rated samples differently by as much as one full scale value on a 9-pt. hedonic scale. Use of PCA to relate the two panels revealed that high consumer acceptance corresponded with the PC loaded with fruity and sweet characteristics while lower consumer acceptability was noted with high loadings on PC2 which was comprised of plain yogurt, acetaldehyde, and sourness descriptors. The results from the first part of the study indicate that to produce a highly acceptable yogurt, processors should strive to provide a balance between sweetness and sourness and provide enough fruit flavor to mask plain yogurt characteristics. In the second part of this study, titratable acidity and pH were measured for all the yogurts, while sugars were measured by HPLC only for the fruit flavored yogurts. Consumer overall liking was significantly correlated with sweetness intensity, sweetness:sourness (sw:so) ratio, and the summed impact of sweetness and sourness from the trained panel for strawberry and raspberry yogurt. No correlations between analytical measures and overall liking were found for any of the yogurts. A sw:so ratio greater than 1.0 for strawberry, and .8 for raspberry and lemon appeared necessary for high consumer acceptance. Generally, it was found that the sweeter the yogurt, the higher the consumer acceptance of fruit flavored yogurt. No relationships were found for any sensory and analytical measures for predicting the overall liking of plain yogurt. However, the best predictors of consumer liking of fruit flavored yogurt were the descriptive panel ratings. / Graduation date: 1991

The purpose of this study was to determine if a composite Research Activity Index (RAI) score could be developed for each major research university in the United States. Such an index if more valid and reliable than existing univariate rankings, would be a valuable instrument for the objective measurement and dissemination of research activity information. Composite RAI scores were developed for each major research university included in this study. The primary data sources were the National Science Foundation's University Science Statistics and the Association of Research Library's ARL index. Eleven variables were used to develop the RAI. They were average percentage change in research and development expenditures over four years; total research and development expenditures; total capital expenditures for scientific and engineering facilities and research equipment for research, development, and instruction; full-time scientists and engineer employed; part-time scientists and engineers employed; full-time graduate science students enrolled; part-time graduate science students enrolled; postdoctoral personnel; other non-faculty doctoral research staff/students; Phd's awarded per year; and the Association of Research Library's annual index. Principal component analysis was used to produce the RAI scores. The RAI was validated by examination for systematic bias, by analysis of each variable's contribution to the outcome, by comparison to the traditional research and development expenditures ranking, and by having the statistical methods reviewed by a noted statistician. Reliability was established by reviewing the stability of the data bases and variable's definitions over time, by reviewing their stability in previous studies, and by determining that like universities produced like RAI scores. This study demonstrates that an objective composite RAI can be developed from existing data and that the index is more valid and reliable than current, unitary research measures. The RAI has the potential for assisting national policy analyses and university management, strategic planning, and evaluation. The RAI allows for historical, longitudinal, and trend analysis; comparative analysis on a national, regional, state, or university basis; and the potential setting of objective, future research goals with subsequent evaluations based upon actual performance of RAI scores.

M.Com. (Informatics) / This dissertation's objective is to supply a general, functional and business orientated discussion of the measurement of information system users' satisfaction. The result of this measurement acts as a measure of the data-processing function's success. It is however, not the purpose of this study to prescribe or develop a new standard method of measurement. This discussion also supplies a grounding for any further doctoral studies in this field. The dissertation's contents, highlights and exposition are being discussed in this synopsis. The motivation of this study lies first of all in the economical and strategic importance [2,3,44,20,17] of the data processing function for an organisation. Secondly, it lies in the importance of satisfied users, or clients, for the success of the data processing function. It is therefore important to always ensure the success of the data processing function, as well as to measure the subjective user satisfaction, accurately and effectively. This study is based on a previous study by Prof. JHP Eloff and DNJ Mostert [7,43], who created a general measurement process that determines the satisfaction of information system users; as well as various other research projects regarding the development and evaluating of these methods of measurement. The various, existing methods of measurement which were found in the literature, i.e: Pearson [6,33]; Baroudi [4,15]; Bailey [16]; Raymond [5] and Tan and Lo [36] , are being discussed in this dissertation. Due to the objective of this dissertation and the business orientated nature of this study, the statistical and critical evaluation of these methods are not being discussed. An attempt is however made to supply a broad view of the available methods of measurement, as well as the various contributions to the field of study by these research projects.

by Sam Chi Ah, Sylvia. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 36-40). / Chapter CHAPTER 1 --- Introduction --- p.5 / Aim of this paper --- p.5 / Quality in educaiton --- p.5 / Why rneasure quality --- p.6 / Multi-dimensional aspect of the measurement --- p.8 / Wbat are we measuring --- p.9 / Chapter CHAPTER 2 --- APPROACHES TO MEASURING EDUCATION QUALITY --- p.13 / By objectives --- p.16 / By meeting social needs --- p.18 / By satisfying student needs --- p.21 / By teacbing quality --- p.22 / Bylearning quality --- p.23 / By nternal process control --- p.26 / By input resources --- p.28 / By output resources --- p.29 / Chapter CHAPTER 3 --- Comparison of models --- p.31 / The USN model --- p.32 / Comparison between models --- p.33 / Chapter CHAPTER 4 --- Applications of the measurements --- p.35 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.36

The purpose of this study was to examine the test performance of five randomly selected groups of 1978 students on five different versions of the Stanford Achievement Test. Three types of comparisons were made. First, the test scores of the five groups of 1978 students in grade 8.1 were compared with each other on the 1929, 1940, 1952, 1964, and 1973 Stanford Achievement Tests. Second, the test scores of each 1978 test group were compared with the test scores of the 8.1 normlng group for each test. Last, the test scores of 1978 students were compared with the test scores of students of the same age in the normlng groups for the five different tests. A total of 236 subjects from one middle school in Upper East Tennessee was used. The 236 subjects were randomly assigned to five groups. The five groups were randomly paired with the five different Stanford Achievement Tests and were tested under the same testing conditions. A computer comparison of the past achievement of the five 1978 test groups proved the groups equal in ability at the time of testing. In making the comparisons, it was found that students in the 1978 test groups were not achieving less than students in the past in all subjects. Reading and language achievement scores were as high or higher than in the past. Mathematics scores were lower than in the past except for 1973. Recommendations for future research were given.