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Evaluation of Continuing Education in the USA

There has been growing interest in evaluation of educational programs for adults in the United States during the past half century. This trend is in marked contrast to the evaluation of preparatory education of young people. For evaluation of preparatory education, the successive stages have been characterized as school reform, achievement testing, focus on outcomes and objectives, and assessment of funded programs by professional evaluators. By contrast, the trend for evaluation of adult and continuing education has been from participant satisfaction and progress, to improved performance and benefits, and most recently comprehensive program evaluation on behalf of multiple stakeholders which includes attention to inputs, process, outcomes, and context. Evaluation of adult and continuing education programs can serve one or more general purposes: planning to increase responsiveness (assessment of needs and context); improvement to enhance quality; and accountability to specify impact (summative evaluation). Fifty years ago there were very few publications each year on evaluations of adult and continuing education. The number and the shift toward more comprehensive approaches to program evaluation increased with each passing decade. As an indication of current attention to evaluation of educational programs for adults in the United States, in each recent year the ERIC Clearinghouse reports about one hundred pertinent publications. The recent Information Series monograph number 375 on Evaluating Adult and Continuing Education provides an overview of the types of illustrative evaluation reports and guidelines for conducting evaluations that are available. Evaluation activities and reports typically occur at one of three levels. One focuses on teaching and learning in a course or program, with conclusions used by participants, instructors, and program coordinators. Most examples and