ELPA 940-002
Randomized Trials to Inform
Education Policy
Fall 2009
Professor Geoffrey Borman
1158 Educational Sciences Building
Thursday 4:40-7:10
ELPA 940 Syllabus 
Required Text
Bloom, H.S. (Ed.) (2005). Learning more from social experiments: Evolving
analytical approaches. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Additional required readings:
September 3
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Borman, G.D. (2009). The use of randomized trials to inform education policy. In G. Sykes, B. Schneider, D.N. Plank (Eds.), Handbook of education policy research (pp. 129-138). New York: Routledge. |
September 10
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Boruch, R. F. (1998). Randomized controlled experiments for evaluation and
planning. In L. Bickman & D. J. Rog (Eds.), Handbook of applied social
research methods (pp. 161-191). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. |
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Boruch, R., de Moya, D., & Snyder, B. (2002). The importance of randomized field
trials in education and related areas. In F. Mosteller & R. Boruch (eds.)
Evidence matters: Randomized trials in education research (pp. 50-79).
Washington, DC: Brookings. |
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Raudenbush, S.W. (2008). Advancing educational policy by advancing research on instruction. American Educational Research Journal, 45, 206-230. |
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Rubin, D.B. (1974). Estimating causal effects of treatments in randomized and
nonrandomized studies. Journal of Educational Psychology, 66, 688-701. |
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Slavin, R.E. (2002). Evidence-based education policies: Transforming educational
practice and research. Educational Researcher, 31(7), 15-21. |
September 17
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Borman, G.D., Gamoran, A., & Bowdon, J. (2008). A randomized trial of teacher development in elementary science: First-year achievement effects. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 1, 237-264. |
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Borman, G.D., Dowling, N.M., & Schneck, C. (2008). A multi-site cluster randomized field trial of Open Court Reading. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 30, 389-407. |
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Borman, G.D., Slavin, R.E., Cheung, A., Chamberlain, A., Madden, N., & Chambers,
B. (2007). Final reading outcomes of the national randomized field trial of
Success for All. American Educational Research Journal, 44, 701-731. |
September 24



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Cook, T.D., & Payne, M.R. (2002). Objecting to the objections to
using random assignment in educational research. In F. Mosteller & R. Boruch
(eds.), Evidence matters: Randomized trials in education research (pp.
150-178). Washington, DC: Brookings.
Gueron, J.M. (2002). The politics of random assignment: Implementing studies and
affecting policy. In F. Mosteller & R. Boruch (eds.), Evidence matters:
Randomized trials in education research (pp. 15-49). Washington, DC:
Brookings.
Shadish, W.R., & Cook, T.D. (2009). The renaissance of field experimentation in evaluating interventions. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 607-629.
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October 1
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Glazerman, S., Levy, D.M., & Myers, D. (2002).
Nonexperimental replications of social experiments: A Systematic Review.
Princeton, NJ: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. |
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Heinsman, T.H., & Shadish, W.R. (1996). Assignment methods in
experimentation: When do nonrandomized experiments approximate answers from
randomized experiments? Psychological Methods, 1, 154-169. |
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Shadish, W.R., Clark, M.H., & Steiner, P.M. (2008). Can nonrandomized experiments yield accurate answers? A randomized experiment comparing random to nonrandom assignment. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 103, 1334-1343. |
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Wilde, E.T, & Hollister, R. (2002). How close is close enough?
Testing nonexperimental estimates of impact against experimental estimates of
impact with education test scores as outcomes. Madison: University of
Wisconsin—Madison, Institute for Research on Poverty. |
October 8
October 15
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Boruch, R., May, H., Turner, H., Lavenberg, J, Petrosino, A., de Moya, D.,
Grimshaw, J., & Foley, E. (2004). Estimating the effects of interventions that
are deployed in many places: Place-randomized trials. American Behavioral
Scientist, 47, 608-633. |
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Burstein, L. (1980). The analysis of multilevel data in educational research and
evaluation. In D. Berliner (Ed.), Review of Research in Education, 8,
158-233. |
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Raudenbush, S.W. (1997). Statistical analysis and optimal design for cluster
randomized trials. Psychological Methods, 2, 173-185. |
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Raudenbush, S.W., Martinez, A., & Spybrook, J. (2007). Strategies for improving precision in group-randomized experiments. Educational Evaluation & Policy Analysis, 29, 5-29. |
October 29
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Cohen, J. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112,155-159. |
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Hill, C.J., Bloom, H.S., Black, A.R., & Lipsey, M.W. (2007). Empirical benchmarks for interpreting effect sizes in research, MDRC Working Paper. New York: MDRC. Available at: http://www.mdrc.org/publications/459/full.pdf |
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Schochet, P.Z. (2008). Statistical power for random assignment evaluations of education programs. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 33, 62-87. |
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Lipsey, M.W., & Wilson, D. B. (1993). The efficacy of psychological,
educational, and behavioral treatment: Confirmation from meta-analysis.
American Psychologist, 48, 1181-1209. |
November 12

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Bloom, H. (1984). Accounting for no-shows in experimental evaluation designs. Evaluation Review, 8, 225-246 |
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Holland, P. (1986). Statistics and causal inference (with discussion).
Journal of the American Statistical Association, 81, 945-970. .
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Hulleman, C.S., & Cordray, D.S. (2009). Moving from the lab to the field: The Role of fidelity and achieved relative intervention strength. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 2, 88-110.
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November 19 |

| Angrist, J.D., Imbens, G.W., & Rubin, D.B. (1996).
Identification of causal effects usings instrumental variables. Journal of
the American Statistical Association, 91, 444-455. |
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Borman, G.D., Benson, J., & Overman, L. (2009). A randomized field trial of the Fast ForWord Language computer-based training program. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 31, 82-106. |
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