Intervention Theory and Evaluating Efficacy

Abstract

Policies shaping evaluation of psychological and educational interventions reflect a naive understanding of the broad nature and function of evaluative research. As a result, such policies are overemphasizing the evaluation of immediate intervention outcomes and undermining comprehensive intervention research. The presentation highlights the danger of this trend and illustrates how the focus of evaluation should be expanded not only to make a greater contribution to practice but to aid in the development of basic knowledge about the nature of interventions. To these ends, evaluation is explored as one of four basic intervention problems; specific examples are offered to underscore the type of basic intervention questions currently ignored and in need of scholarly attention.