Experimental Evaluation Design for Program Improvement

The concepts of cause and effect are critical to the field of program evaluation. Experimentally-designed evaluations―those that randomize to treatment and control groups―offer a convincing means for establishing a causal connection between a program and its effects. Experimental Evaluation Design for Program Improvement considers a range of impact evaluation questions, particularly those questions that focus on the impact of specific aspects of a program. Laura R. Peck shows how a variety of experimental evaluation design options can provide answers to these questions, and she suggests opportunities for experiments to be applied in more varied settings and focused on program improvement efforts.

Laura R. Peck, Ph.D., is a principal scientist at Abt Associates and has spent her career evaluating social welfare and employment policies and programs, both in research and academic settings. A policy analyst by training, Dr. Peck specializes in innovative ways to estimate program impacts in experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations, and she applies this to many social safety net programs. Dr. Peck is currently the principal investigator, co-PI, or director of analysis for several major national evaluations for the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Housing and Urban Development and over her career has been part of more than 35 informative evaluations of nonprofit, local, state, and federal programs and policies. Peck is a co-author of a public policy textbook and is well published on program evaluation topics. Prior to her work at Abt Associates, Dr. Peck was a tenured professor at the Arizona State University School of Public Affairs and also served as the founding associate dean of the Barrett Honors College, Downtown Phoenix campus. She earned her PhD from the Wagner Graduate School at New York University.