SAGE Journal Articles
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This study illuminates several concepts discussed in Ch. 3 of the textbook including RCTs, internal validity issues, and determining causality in program evaluations. The article describes an RCT study in which the researchers examined the effectiveness of BWCs in reducing citizen complaints of the police. The authors draw conclusions about what may have caused the program effects and discuss treatment diffusion as a potential threat to the validity of the findings.
This article contains a dialogue between leading theorists and methodologists in the field of program evaluation, Thomas D. Cook and Michael Scriven. The two researchers engage in a discussion about causality, proposing several congruent as well as diverging views of the role of the randomized controlled trial (RCT) in program evaluation. Cook and Scriven’s discussion provides interesting perspectives on determining causality in program evaluation.
Journal Article 3: Peck, L. R., Kim, Y., & Lucio, J. (2012). An empirical examination of validity in evaluation. American Journal of Evaluation, 33, 350–365.
This study addresses validity issues in evaluation by examining articles from 1980 to 2010 that report the results of policy and program evaluations in the American Journal of Evaluation. The authors draw on Ernest R. House’s evaluation typology to categorize each study as well as explore the validity issues addressed in each.