Les McLean is Professor-Emeritus in the Measurement and Evaluation
Program,
Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, OISE/UT
This is not Robert Burns. Better still, go here to the site for the Clan McLean/Maclean. |
The Pilot Program is now finished, and the printed version of OISE/UT's
report, Metamorphosis of
YNN, is available from Athena Educational Partners, 7575
Trans Canada Hwy, suite 500, Montréal, Québec, H4T 1V6. The opponents of YNN/Athena are just as active as always. John Pungente, SJ has sent a letter to the Premier and to the Minister of Education in Manitoba claiming (among other inaccuracies) that my evaluation was my own doing and not an OISE/UT project. The OISE/UT Dean is writing to correct the record, but this libelous personal attack has been widely circulated--including an Internet posting. (The Internet posting was pulled by the bulletin board administrator after one or two days, but many likely saw it.) If anyone ever doubted that evaluation was a political activity, this experience should remove doubt. If you have seen Pungente's letter and wish to read the Dean's, click here. EVALUATE, EVALUATION-
The key sense of the term "evaluation" refers to the process of determining the merit, worth, or value of something, or the product of that process. Terms used to refer to this process or part of it include: appraise,
analyze, assess, critique, examine, grade, inspect, judge, rate, rank, review, study, test. ... The evaluation process normally involves some indentification of relevant standards of merit, worth, or value; some investigation of the performance of evaluan
ds on these standards; and some integration or synthesis of the results to achieve an overall evaluation or a set of associated evaluations. It contrasts with the measurement process, which also involves the comparison of observations against standards, i
n that (i) measurement is characteristically not concerned with merit, only with 'purely descriptive' properties, and (ii) those properties are characteristically unidimensional, which avoids the need for the integrating step. The integration process is s
ometimes judgmental, somethimes the result of complex calculation, very commonly a hybrid of the two. |
With a Master's Degree in Statistics and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, it may come as no surprise that I have carried out, participated in and watched over a number of large-scale assessments of student achievement, with associated attitude/demographic surveys. Now retired, I have taught courses in program evaluation, research design and statistics, and the occasional seminar on qualitative research. In addition to finishing up the evaluation of the YNN Pilot Program, I am working with the Ontario Securities Commission on a national examination to license financial advisors and planners. Many of my friends will find it difficult to believe that I advocate the use of item response models in developing the examination and producing scores. We will use the computer program TestGraf, created by McGill Professor J. O. Ramsay. For more information click here.
Les flirted with post-positivist critical multiplism for a time but stays well away from critical pedagogy. A short cv is available, as well as a poem or two. I cannot resist offering a picture of my grandchildren.
A collaborative essay review of Miller, Steven I. & Fredericks,
Marcel (1994) Qualitative Research Methods: Social Epistemology
and Practical Inquiry. New York: Peter Lang. 159 pages. Educational
Policy Analysis Archives,5(13) as a hypertext document,
June 1997.
"If in search of truth an evaluator" (1997) Invited chapter for
Linda Mabry (Ed.) Evaluation and the Postmodern Dilemma.
Vol. 3, Advances in Program Evaluation. Greenwich, Conn.:
JAI Press. pages 139-153. A commentary by
Tineke Abma on this and two other chapters was
published in "Narrative Stance, Voice, and Tropes: A pastiche on
evaluators as narrators,"
Advances in Program Evaluation, vol. 6, pages 235-263. 1999
"The Likert Technique: Not retired at 65" (Abstract ) Paper presented at the conference in honour of T.O. Maguire, Current and Future Research Directions for the New Millennium, Banff Conference Centre, Banff, Alberta, October 22-24, 1998.
"35 Years Goes Fast When You're Having Fun." Proceedings of the Stake Symposium on Educational Evaluation, Rita Davis (Ed.). May 8-9, 1998. University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois, USA. Pp. 319-322.
"Reflections on Program Evaluation, 35 Years On." The Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, Special Issue 2000, 185-190.
"School-based evaluation and the neo-liberal agenda in Canada.". Chapter in press, David Nevo (Ed.)
The Metamorphosis of YNN: Evaluation of the YNN Pilot Program.
Toronto: The Governing Council of the University of Toronto, 2000.
"The Classic and the Newcomer". Review Essay of two evaluation texts: the 6th Edition (!) of Evaluation: A Systematic Approach (Rossi, Freeman and Lipsey, 1999, Sage) and Program Evaluation: Forms and Approaches (Owen and Rogers, 1999, Sage). British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 27, No. 1, 2001.
252
Bloor Street West, Suite 10-164
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1V6
Voice: 416 923 6641, ext. 2478
lmclean@oise.utoronto.ca
Last modified: January 29, 2001