Berk Chapter 4

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Berk Chapter 4

• Examining Ongoing Programs

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Stage 1 Is Program Reaching Beneficiaries?

• Page 67 drug users
• Placing program incorrect context
• Outreach vs. community institutions
• Problems change with time
• Beneficiary failures
• Apathy
• Laziness
• Free riders

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Stage 2 Program Integrity

• Delivery involves real world hazards
• Training or retraining personnel
• Implementation magnitude
• Lines of authority
• Page 70 example

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Stage 3 Fiscal Accountability

• CPA v. economist
• Correct expenditures dont equal correct
  implementation
• Economist
• Resource allocation
• Opportunity costs
• Cost-benefit analysis

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Stage 4 Evaluability Question

• Vague goals
• Specified program content
• Absence of program v. existence of program
• How would world differ if program didnt exist?

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Stage 5 Effectiveness Question

• Setting goals for new programs thru stakeholder
  experiences, expert advice, past research, theory
• Sesame Street
• Goals involved improving childrens math skills
• Very concrete and evaluable

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Methodology

• Randomization
• Helps eliminate confounding variables
• Helps eliminate spuriousness
• Costly
• Time consuming

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True Experiments

• Random assignment of subjects
• Experimental group receives intervention
  (program)
• Control group no intervention (program)
• Most prized design
• Problem attrition, difficulty of implementation

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Regression Discontinuity

• Subjects selected on some trait or standard
• Can be anything
• Similar to matched samples design
• Selected subjects randomly assigned to groups

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Interrupted Time Series

• Repeated measures over time
• Measurements taken before intervention as
  baseline
• Measurements taken at various times during
  intervention
• Problem
• Societal events

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Cross Sectional

• Cutting a cake
• Measurements taken only once
• Problem
• Comparison groups different on some important
  trait before intervention

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Pooled Cross Sectional Time Series

• Similar to panel designs
• Take measurements of 2 groups over series of time
• 1 group receives intervention
• 1 group receives no intervention