A Three Year Proposal to conduct Two Annual Workshops on Better Quasi-Experimental Design and Analysis in Education

Well executed randomized experiments provide the strongest evidence about causal effects of educational interventions, products, and services. But randomized experiments may not always be feasible or successful. As a result, quasi-experimental designs are often used in education research for causal purposes. However, the quality of quasi-experimental designs and their application varies widely. In addition, knowledge of the better quasi-experimental designs that provide stronger evidence for making causal connections is not currently widespread among educational researchers. This is in part due to the ongoing advances being made in quasi-experimental methods. The purpose of this project was to build the capacity of the education research community to carry out advanced quasi-experiments.