The politics of random assignment: Implementing studies and impacting policy

Journal of Children's Services

Volumn 3, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 14-26

  Gueron, Judith ^a  

^a Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC)   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Informed consent; Political concerns; Random assignment; Social experiments

Indexed keywords

EID: 84993054443     PISSN: 17466660     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1108/17466660200800003     Document Type: Review

References (46)

1. Aaron HJ (1978) Politics and the Professors: The great society in perspective. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
2. Baum EB (1991) When the witch doctors agree: the family support act and social science research. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 10 (4) 603-615.
3. Betsey CL, Hollister RG & Papageorgiou MR (1985) Youth Employment and Training Programmes: The YEDPA years. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
4. Bloom D (1997) After AFDC: Welfare-to-work choices and challenges for states. New York: MDRC.
5. Bloom HS (1999) Building a Convincing Test of a Public Housing Employment Programme Using Non-Experimental Methods: Planning for the jobs-plus demonstration. New York: MDRC.
6. Boruch RF (1997) Randomized Experiments for Planning and Evaluation. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.
7. Boruch R, Snyder B & DeMoya D (1999) The Importance of Randomized Field Trials. Paper presented at meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
8. Cave G, Doolittle F, Bos H & Toussaint C (1993) JOBSTART: Final report on a programme for school dropouts. New York: MDRC.
9. Connell J, Kubisch A, Schorr L & Weiss C (Eds) (1995) New Approaches to Evaluating Community Initiatives: Concepts, methods and contexts. Roundtable on comprehensive community. Washington, DC: Aspen Institute.
10. Cook T (1999) Considering the Major Arguments Against Random Assignment: An analysis of the intellectual culture surrounding evaluation in American schools of education. Paper presented at the Harvard Faculty Seminar on Experiments in Education, Cambridge, Mass.
11. Doolittle F, Hasselbring D & Traeger L (1990) Lessons on Site Relations from the JTPA Team: Test pilots for random assignment. Internal paper. New York: MDRC.
12. Doolittle F & Traeger L (1990) Implementing the National JTPA Study. New York: MDRC.
13. Friedlander D & Burtless G (1995) Five Years After: The long-term effects of welfare-to-work programmes. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
14. Goldman B (1981) Impacts of the Immediate Job Search Assistance Experiment: Louisville WIN research laboratory project. New York: MDRC.
15. Greenberg DH & Mandell MB (1991) Research utilization in policymaking: a tale of two series (of social experiments). Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 10 (4) 633-656.
16. Greenberg D & Shroder M (1997) The Digest of Social Experiments (2nd edition). Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
17. Greenberg D & Wiseman M (1992) What did the OBRA demonstrations do? In: C Manski and E Garfinkel (Eds) Evaluating Employment and Training Programmes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
18. Gueron JM (1980) The supported work experiment. In: E Ginzberg (Ed) Employing the Unemployed. New York: Basic Books.
19. Gueron JM (1984) Lessons from managing the supported work demonstration. In: RG Hollister Jr, P Kemper and RA Maynard (Eds) The National Supported Work Demonstration. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
20. Gueron JM (1985) The demonstration of state work/welfare initiatives. In: RF Boruch and W Wothke (Eds) Randomization and Field Experimentation (special issue of New Directions for Programme Evaluation) 28 5-14.
21. Gueron JM (1997) Learning about welfare reform: lessons from state-based evaluations. New Directions for Evaluation 76 79-94.
22. Gueron JM (1999) Comment on Rossi, PH. Evaluating community development programs: problems and prospects. In: RF
23. Gueron JM (2000) The Politics of Random Assignment: Implementing studies and impacting policy. MDRC Working Paper. New York: MDRC.
24. Gueron JM (2002) The politics of random assignment: implementing studies and impacting policy. In: F Mosteller & R Boruch (Eds) Evidence Matters: Randomised trials in education research. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
25. Ferguson & WT Dickens (Eds) Urban Problems and Community Development. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
26. Gueron JM & Pauly E (1991) From Welfare to Work. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
27. Hamilton G, Brock T, Farrell M, Friedlander D & Harknett K (1997) National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies: Evaluating two welfare-to-work programme approaches: two-year findings on the Labor force attachment and human capital development programmes in three sites. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families and Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, US Department of Education, Office of the Under Secretary and Office of Vocational and Adult Education.
28. Haskins R (1991) Congress writes a law: research and welfare reform. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 10 (4) 616-632.
29. Hollister RG Jr, Kemper P & Maynard RA (Eds) (1984) The National Supported Work Demonstration. Madison: University of
30. Wisconsin Press.
31. Kemple JJ (1998) Using Random Assignment Field Experiments to Measure the Effects of School-Based Education Interventions. Paper prepared for the annual conference of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, New York.
32. Kemple JJ & Snipes JC (2000) Career Academies: Impacts on students’ engagement and performance in high school. New York: MDRC.
33. Kornfeld R & Bloom H (1999) Measuring the impacts of social programmes on the earnings and employment of low-income persons: do UI wage records and surveys agree? Journal of Labor Economics 17 (1).
34. Leiman JM (1982) The WIN Labs: A federal/local partnership in social research. New York: MDRC.
35. Miller C, Knox V, Auspos P, Hunter-Manns JA and Orenstein A (1997) Making Welfare Work and Work Pay: Implementation and 18-month impacts of the Minnesota family investment programme. New York: MDRC.
36. Mosteller F (1999), Forum: The case for smaller classes. Harvard Magazine. May-June 1999.
37. Nave B, Miech EJ & Mosteller F (1998) A Rare Design: The role of field trials in evaluating school practices. Paper presented at meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
38. Pauly E & Thompson DE (1993) Assisting schools and disadvantaged children by getting and using better evidence on what works. The Opportunities and Limitations of Field Tests Using Random Assignment. New York: MDRC.
39. Quint J, Bos JM & Polit DF (1997) New Chance: Final report on a comprehensive programme for young mothers in poverty and their children. New York: MDRC.
40. Quint J, Edin K, Buck ML, Fink B, Padilla YC, Simmons-Hewitt O & Valmont ME (1999) Big Cities and Welfare Reform: Early implementation and ethnographic findings from the project on devolution and urban change. New York: MDRC.
41. Riccio J (1999) Mobilizing Public Housing Communities for Work: Origins and early accomplishments of the jobs-plus demonstration. New York: MDRC.
42. Riccio J, Friedlander D & Freedman S (1994) GAIN: Benefits, Costs, and three-year impacts of a welfare-to-work programme. New York: MDRC.
43. Szanton PL (1991) The remarkable ‘quango’: knowledge, politics, and welfare reform. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 10 (4) 590-602
44. US Department of Labor (1985) Recommendations of the Job Training Longitudinal Survey Research Advisory Panel. Washington, DC: US Department of Labor.
45. US Department of Labor (1995) What's Working (and What's Not): A summary of research on the economic impacts of employment and training programmes. Washington, DC: US Department of Labor.
46. Wiseman M (1991) Research and policy: an afterword for the symposium on the family support act of 1988. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 10 (4) 657-666.