The history and current state of evaluation of vocational education and training (VET) in Australia was examined. The study's main conclusion was that, despite its important potential, evaluation has thus far been little used for the improvement of VET in Australia. Other conclusions of the study were as follows: (1) little development of evaluation theory has occurred over the past few decades; (2) during the past 5 years, only 98 evaluations of VET and 4 evaluations of workplace training were published; (3) according to a recent survey of industry, only 48% of worksites formally evaluated any training delivered in the past year; (4) most of the information being sought by Technical and Further Education (TAFE) agencies requires routine processing of data already held on TAFE's computer systems; (5) because of its relative ease and inexpensiveness, the performance indicators approach has replaced traditional course evaluation approaches in most areas of formal VET in Australia and overseas; and (6) three issues affecting the current state of evaluation of VET in Australia are little or no theory base, little policy focus, and little evaluation of "big" issues. (The report contains 43 references. Appended is a chart explaining the traditional division between evaluation and research.) (MN)