Evaluation designs seek to provide evidence of impact and collect formative data to understand and improve programs and inform decisions. Formative data is commonly used at the onset of developing a new program to modify and improve before full implementation. However, formative data is often collected throughout the life of the program to shape…

We consider a class of multiple-group individually-randomized group trials (IRGTs) that introduces a (partially) cross-classified structure in the treatment condition (only). The novel feature of this design is that the nature of the treatment induces a clustering structure that involves two or more non-nested groups among individuals in the…

Background/Context: The reckoning with racial injustice and growing inequality that have become hallmarks of the early 2020s in the United States has implications for impact analysis and the evidence it produced for public policy decision-making. Various researchers have highlighted the shortcomings that impact analyses have when estimating the…

Background: The analysis of mediating mechanisms attempts to examine the impact of, for example, teacher training by dismantling and testing the core components that comprise an underlying theory and program. This process is seen as a critical step in evaluating programs and mapping teacher development because it provides empirical tests of each…

Background: Education scientists are increasingly interested in constructing interventions that are adaptive over time to suit the evolving needs of students, classrooms, or schools. Such "adaptive interventions" (also referred to as dynamic treatment regimens or dynamic instructional regimes) determine which treatment should be offered…

Random encouragement designs are randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that test interventions aimed at increasing participation in a program or activity whose take up is not universal. In these RCTs, instead of randomizing individuals or clusters directly into treatment and control groups to participate in a program or activity, the randomization…

Background: Education researchers typically estimate average program effects with regression; if they are interested in heterogeneous effects, they include an interaction in the model. Such models quantify and infer the influences of each covariate on the effect via interaction coefficients and their associated p-values or confidence intervals.…

Why we need better reports of teacher professional development interventions for finding out what works where: Worldwide, billions of dollars are invested yearly in the professional development of in-service teachers ($14 billion in the USA alone, as of 2014; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2014). This makes the question of what effects TPD…

Background/Context: Some observational studies involve multiple layers of treatment selection, specifically in the context of the extended time accommodation (ETA) for English language learners (ELLs). In ETA settings, the first selection occurs due to the eligibility rule, where students whose ELL English proficiency is below a certain threshold…