This report presents results of a series of studies documenting current practices in the evaluation of gifted programs and investigating the factors which make evaluation more useful to decision-makers. The investigation involved establishing several databases containing three kinds of information: (1) abstracts of articles relating to evaluation utility and the evaluation of gifted programs; (2) instruments that have been used by other school districts in the evaluation of gifted programs as well as reviews of these instruments; and (3) actual evaluations used across the nation to assess the effectiveness of gifted programs. Studies identified factors which improve the likelihood that results of an evaluation will be useful and will lead to development of a set of guidelines. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the National Repository databases. Chapter 2 reviews the literature on program evaluation. Chapter 3 reports on a study of current practices in the evaluation of gifted programs. Chapter 4 presents case studies in program evaluation utilization in gifted programs. Chapter 5 offers a summary and conclusions. Ten appendices include tables, the scale developed for evaluation of the program evaluation instruments, a planning guide for program evaluation, the program evaluation guidelines, and the evaluation instruments database form. (Contains 55 references.) (DB)