Performance Evaluation: Proven Approaches for Improving Program and Organizational Performance

PROBLEMS WITH CLASSIC EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES IN APPLIED SETTINGS

Although the classic experiment is useful to increase confidence in findings about treatments and results, the use of classic experimentation is rare in most evaluation studies. First, the method does not address the value of the outcome. Second, the classic experiment requires resources and time that are usually not available to the evaluator. Third, organizations are not always willing to commit the time and resources to conduct experiments. For instance, if the organizational leaders make a decision to implement the new incentive program based on needs assessment data, they may want to move ahead and implement it across all relevant branches in the hope that overall performance ...