This investigation examined the effect contextual variables had on a national sample of school board members' information needs for decision making. Importance, conflict, and content were found to be associated with board members' needs for time, information, and consultation. (Author/LMO)

A developmental perspective on supervising evaluation practicum students suggests that students go through developmental stages as they enhance their evaluation skills. A three-stage model adapted from counseling training theory developmental perspective is illustrated for eight developmental tasks: competence, emotional awareness, autonomy,…

This paper discusses two models that hold promise for helping evaluators understand and cope with different decision contexts: (1) the conflict Model (Janis and Mann, 1977) and the Social Process Model (Vroom and Yago, 1974). Implications and guidelines for using decisionmaking models in evaluation settings are presented. (BS)

In a simulated adversary-advocacy evaluation of a computer-assisted school guidance program, the evaluation audience's reaction to different forms of data, the order of argument presentations, and the rated attitude of the evaluator are shown to influence audience agreement with evaluation recommendations. (CM)

An evaluation report, an article discussing the importance of evaluation, and a program evaluation budget needs assessment were used in a variety of combinations for three studies. Providing "importance" information along with the evaluation report had a positive impact on evaluation audience satisfaction. (Author/RL)