The current study was conducted to examine the scope and extent of existing International Teaching Assistant (ITA) training and development programs nationwide. Using Stufflebeam's CIPP (context, input, process and product) evaluation model, the following questions guided the study: (1) What are the needs of ITAs? (2) How are these needs determined? (3) What are the strategies and planned activities to address the needs of ITAs? (4) Are the activities in ITA programs carried out as planned and delivered efficiently? (5) Are the objectives of ITA programs met and evaluated? and (6) How are the universities and colleges with ITA programs of reported success different from other universities and colleges?

An email survey was sent to 81 universities and colleges that had at least 1,000 international students with existing ITA programs. The response rate was 70%. It was found that the current ITA programs had broad institutional goals and positive effects on ITAs' improvement of language proficiency, cross culture and communication skills, and instruction skills. Although universities and colleges have been striving for more departmental, faculty and undergraduate students' involvement in ITA training, the levels of involvement were not high. In general, long-term evaluation of training effects on ITAs' teaching performance was largely lacking. Universities and colleges with ITA programs of reported success (with a score of four and higher on a 1-7 scale in this study) had used various formats of evaluation to monitor ITAs in training and to evaluate ITAs' improvement of language proficiency, cross culture and communication skills, and instruction skills. On-going supervision and mentoring were also found to contribute to the success of ITA programs in terms of communication skills improvement among ITAs. It is recommended that everyone involved in ITA training cooperate, coordinate, and communicate with each other to serve ITAs and maximize training efforts. This would involve more dialogue and scientific inquiry among ITA practitioners and other constituencies. For colleges and universities that strive to improve their ITA programs, strategies and best practices shared by respondents of the survey could be adapted to fit the institutional needs and goals in ITA training and development activities.