Scope and Method of Study: The purpose of the study was to assess the educational criteria used by manufacturers in the development and publication of educational software and compare it to an evaluation system used by educators, who are members of the California Software Evaluation Consortium. The 132 subjects were educational software manufacturers, developers, and publishers identified by The 1986 Educational Software Preview Guide. Subjects were contacted and a request was made for the procedures and criteria used by subjects to select educational software for publication.

Findings and Conclusions: Ninety-one or sixty-nine percent of publishers responded. Overall, the majority of publishers do not have a formal or standard set of criteria to guide in software development or employ in the selection of educational software for publication. However, the small number of publishers employing formal or some criteria or policies regarding the development and selection of educational software for publication do not employ the same criteria that educators deem important.