Designing Randomised Trials in Health, Education and the Social Sciences

Evidence-based policy increasingly demands rigorous randomized trials. Designing and Running Randomised Trials in Health and Education focusses solely on randomized trials and exemplifies their use primarily in the major fields of health, education and criminal justice research. Beginning with a history of randomized trials and a justification for their use, the book then outlines, chapter by chapter, important design issues researchers need to consider in order to produce a robust experiment. Unusual designs (such as preference trials) are introduced and their applications to different social science situations are explained in detail. The book also includes introductory chapters about using economics alongside trials and describes basic statistical approaches to the analysis of trial data.