Designing a Cost-Effective Field Trial for an Intervention in a Messy System With Multiple, Interacting Variables
Three years of study of the full treatment model coupled to the early indications of success on the high school campus have lead to the identification of a few key features responsible for the summer success. These key features can be bundled into a single intervention that can be subjected to a field trial. We suggest that this work is a critical component of a field trial. Research to identify a single intervention composed of key features can be considered as Phase 1 of a field trial - analogous to the early exploration phases of clinical trials in medicine.
The results of this work is the design of the randomized field trial. Beginning in the second semester of 2008 we will begin testing an intervention that bundles in-class tutoring, practice exam administration, and the culture of success in four classes. Although the classes will not be assigned in a traditional "blind" fashion, the outcome variable, student performance on the state exam, is itself "blind" to the intervention. Natural comparison and control groups exist thus enabling field trial to make claims about the efficacy of the intervention. Details of the design of the field trial, its hypotheses, comparison and control groups, and methods of analysis will be discussed.
