Issues of Design and Analysis in Evaluation Research

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of internal validity in quasi-experimental and nonexperimental social policy research. We focus primary attention on problems of selection in research designs where assignment to experimental conditions occurs on a nonrandom basis. Five different solutions to the problems of selection are discussed-randomization, covariance adjustment, gain scores, matching, and explicit selection-and we examine the conditions under which these solutions are useful. The problem of random measurement error is discussed within the context of our elaboration of these techniques.