Understanding the What Works Clearinghouse Standards for Regression Discontinuity Designs

N

5

Researchers

Educational Research; Intervention; Context Effect; Identification; Research Design; Regression (Statistics); Standards; Cutting Scores; Control Groups; Researchers; Educational Improvement; Goal Orientation

Regression discontinuity designs (RDDs) are considered to be one of the strongest nonexperimental designs available for the purpose of identifying the effects of an intervention. RDD can be used in situations in which assignment to a treatment group is based on a cutoff value on a continuous assignment variable. The impact of the intervention is calculated as the regression-adjusted difference in the predicted outcomes for treatment and control group members at the cutoff value of the assignment variable. The purpose of this paper is to explain the RDD standards and some of their implications for researchers who are designing new RDD studies. Based on the involvement in the development of these standards, the authors hope to help researchers better understand the standards, what they can do to design and conduct studies that are more likely to meet these standards, and how the standards might evolve in the future.

ERIC

8

2011

ED519764