Evaluating the impact of instructional innovations and coordinating instruction, assessment, and testing present complex tensions. Many evaluation and coordination efforts aim to address these tensions by using the coherence provided by modern cognitive science perspectives on domain-specific learning. This paper introduces an alternative…

The gold standard in making causal inference on program effects is a randomized trial. Most randomization designs in education randomize classrooms or schools rather than individual students. Such "clustered randomization" designs have one principal drawback: They tend to have limited statistical power or precision. This study aims to…

Suggestions, based on the experience of researchers at Oak Ridge (Tennessee) Associated Universities (ORAU), are offered on how evaluations in which true experimental designs are not possible can be designed for meaningful comparison. The ORAU conducts evaluation and assessment studies of educational programs intended to explore some aspect of the…