Small Answers to the Big Question: Learning from Language Programme Evaluation Written by Richard Kiely

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Research Design

Due to the reason that Sir Richard Kiely is writing this articles to introduce the usage of programme evaluation, this article does not has any discussion on the design of the two research used as examples in the article. The writer only takes some parts of the two researches as examples when he is introducing the concept of programme evaluation. Additionally, this article also does not mention the research questions, hypotheses and objective of the researches used as example for discussion. In this case, reader would have to find out the research articles used for discussion themselves so that they could further understand this article.

Sampling

On top of that, information about the sampling methods as well as the participant of the researches used for discussion are also absent. In my opinion, I think that the writer could provide some basic information of the sampling method and the background of the participant so that the reader could have a moment of time to think and reflect on the information read.

Findings and Discussion

The finding and discussion of the two researches are presented in this article to support the introduction of materials evaluation. The findings were scripted in the articles and discussion was done based on the finding inserted. The writer had insert findings from the researches to support his argument on materials evaluation and it was then used for discussion on programme effectiveness. This makes me think that, the writer could insert other findings to support his argument in other ideas such as features of context in language programme evaluation so that the discussion become meaningful. Moreover, I also think that findings presented in article could better convince reader.

Conclusion

The conclusion had again argue the core of this article is about the effectiveness of programme evaluation while proposing a new contributed focus compared to previous programme evaluation that been carried out last time. It also argues that evaluation is a set of strategies to document and understand the programme that involves research activity and engage with the social, cultural and historical identity of the programme.

Lastly, I would think that this article could be more reader friendly if it was written in a simple and structured way such as using point form to listed out the ideas like what I had read in another article entitle “Planning a programme evaluation” written by Taylor-Powell, Steele and Douglah (1996).

References:

Taylor-Powell, E., Steele, S & Douglah, M. (Feb, 1996) Planning a programme evaluation. University of Wisconsin-Extension.