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This book presents some quasi-experimental designs and design features that can be used in many social research settings. The designs serve to probe causal hypotheses about a wide variety of substantive issues in both basic and applied research. Each design is assessed in terms of four types of validity, with special stress on internal validity. Although general conclusions are drawn about the strengths and limitations of each design, emphasis is also placed on the fact that the relevant threats to valid inference are specific to each research setting. Consequently, a threat that is usually associated with a particular design need not invariably be associated with that design.
This book examines the role of the social sciences in shaping and evaluating social policy. It considers the past, present and potential role of the social sciences in policy creation, implementation, and evaluation processes. The authors present a considerable range of opinions about the ability of the social sciences to provide useful information is presented. The common view is that the social sciences can contribute to policy-making processes to a modest extent.
In the course of its television lifetime, "Sesame Street" has taught alphabet-related skills to hundreds of thousands of preschool children. But the program may have attracted more of its regular viewers from relatively affluent homes in which the parents were better educated. Analyzing and reevaluating data drawn from several sources, principally the Educational Testing Service's evaluations of "Sesame Street," the authors of this book open fresh lines of inquiry into how much economically disadvantaged children learned from viewing the series for six months and into whether the program is widening the gap that separates the academic achievement of disadvantaged preschoolers from that of their more affluent counterparts. The authors define as acute dilemma currently facing educational policymakers: what positive results are achieved when a large number of children learn some skills at a younger age if this absolute increase in knowledge is associated with an increase in the difference between social groups?
Foundations of Program Evaluationheralds a thorough exploration of the field of program evaluation--looking back on its origins. By summarizing, comparing, and contrasting the work of seven major theorists of program evaluation, this book provides an important perspective on the current state of evaluation theory and provides suggestions for ways of improving its practice. Beginning in Chapter Two, the authors develop a conceptual framework to analyze how successfully each theory meets the specific criteria of its framework. Each subsequent chapter is devoted to the presentation of the theoretical and practical advice of a significant theorist--Michael Scriven, Donald Campbell, Carol Weiss, Joseph Wholey, Robert Stake, Lee Cronbach, and Peter Rossi.
One of the myths about families in inner-city neighborhoods is that they are characterized by poor parenting. Sociologist Frank Furstenberg and his colleagues explode this and other misconceptions about success, parenting, and socioeconomic advantage in Managing to Make It. This unique study—the first in the MacArthur Foundation Studies on Successful Adolescent Development series—focuses on how and why youth are able to overcome social disadvantages. Based on nearly 500 interviews and case studies of families in inner-city Philadelphia, Managing to Make It lays out in detail the creative means parents use to manage risks and opportunities in their communities. More importantly, it also depicts the strategies parents develop to steer their children away from risk and toward resources that foster positive development and lead to success. "Indispensible to anyone concerned about breaking the cycle of poverty and helplessness among at-risk adolescents, this book has a readable, graphic style easily grasped by those unfamiliar with statistical techniques." —Library Journal
“No other suspense writer takes readers as deeply into the heart of darkness as Thomas H. Cook.”—Chicago Tribune I know you were there. . . . Roy Slater left Kingdom County forever after the shocking double homicide that rocked his hometown. But the .38-caliber echoes he left behind still haunt the hardscrabble West Virginia community. Now, twenty-five years later, he’s come back to spend one last summer caring for his dying father. I know what you did. . . Only Roy knows what really happened that snowy night two decades ago when the world suddenly shattered—only Roy and old Sheriff Wallace Porterfield. And now, maybe, Porterfield’s son, the new sheriff, knows too. You’ll never...
An “eerily poignant novel” about a grieving father and a cold-case mystery, from an Edgar Award winner (PublishersWeekly, starred review). George Gates used to be a travel writer who specialized in places where people disappeared—Judge Crater, the Lost Colony. Then his eight-year-old son was murdered, the killer never found, and Gates gave up disappearance. Now he writes stories of redemptive triviality about flower festivals and local celebrities for the town paper, and spends his evenings haunted by the image of his son’s last day. Enter Arlo McBride, a retired missing-persons detective still obsessed with the unsolved case of Katherine Carr. When he gives Gates the story she left ...
Clinical trials have become essential research tools for evaluating the benefits and risks of new interventions for the treatment and prevention of diseases, from cardiovascular disease to cancer to AIDS. Based on the authors’ collective experiences in this field, Introduction to Statistical Methods for Clinical Trials presents various statistical topics relevant to the design, monitoring, and analysis of a clinical trial. After reviewing the history, ethics, protocol, and regulatory issues of clinical trials, the book provides guidelines for formulating primary and secondary questions and translating clinical questions into statistical ones. It examines designs used in clinical trials, pr...