A MULTI-METHOD APPROACH TO EVALUATING THE (TXESS) REVOLUTION

The TXESS Revolution is a geoscience education model that was built on six key principles, which guided the design of the program and contributed to its success: (1) model best practices in workshop presentations; (2) use authentic earth science data and cybertechnology to teach up-to-date content; (3) provide ongoing training to cohorts of learners; (4) involve geoscience consortia and programs that can provide proven content for classrooms; (5) use ongoing evaluation to guide future workshops; (6) provide opportunities for teachers to participate in research and curriculum development projects. As evaluators of the project, we were tasked with assessing the fidelity of treatment and the efficacy of program outcomes. To accomplish this, we developed a multi-method approach to program evaluation that included a broad range of qualitative and qualitative elements. We believe that this approach to program evaluation can be used as a model to evaluate other programs of similar, or of different, types in the field of science education. The evaluation model, along with results from our evaluation of the TXESS Revolution program as a demonstration of the model, will be discussed.