Designing Experiments in Education and the Social Sciences

Larry V. Hedges

• Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9780871545961
• eBook ISBN:
  9781610449519
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Education General
• Index: Social Sciences

Randomized experiments—often referred to as the gold standard of research design—are generally accepted as the type of studies that provide the strongest evidence about cause and effect. There has been a wide adoption of experimental methods in agriculture, medicine, industrial design, and laboratory social sciences, such as experimental psychology, where conditions can be controlled. Since then, there has been an increase in the use of field experiments to provide evidence of cause and effect beyond the laboratory. However, the social settings in which these studies take place complicate the design and evaluation of experiments because their social contexts must be taken into account in order for the experiment to provide useful and unambiguous results. In Designing Experiments in Education and the Social Sciences, statistician Larry V. Hedges details how to design educational and social science field experiments that are sensitive enough to provide clear-cut evidence on the effects of social interventions.

Hedges draws on one hundred years of statistical theory and classic experimental design in Designing Experiments in Education and the Social Sciences. Highlighting the social-structural information embedded in field experiments, he links this history with contemporary statistical methods in the social sciences to explain how to design social experiments that are adequately sensitive to determine the influence of an intervention. He covers the four basic research designs—and 39 elaborations of those designs—that are used most often in social experiments while also introducing additional, more complex, designs. He brings together, in the same notation, work on experimental design, design sensitivity, and optimal design of experiments for the most frequently used research designs in education and the social sciences, emphasizing their conceptual consistency. Hedges also discusses the practical problems of how to recruit and maintain a sample throughout the duration of an experiment.

Designing Experiments in Education and the Social Sciences is an essential resource for researchers planning educational and social field experiments and graduate students.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• About the Author
• Preface
• Chapter 1. Basic Concepts Underlying Research Design
• Chapter 2. Logic Models, Theories of Change, and Treatment Mechanisms
• Chapter 3. Recruiting and Retaining a Sample
• Chapter 4. Sampling and Implications for Design
• Chapter 5. Effect Sizes
• Chapter 6. Planning Experimental Designs
• Chapter 7. Individually Randomized Designs
• Chapter 8. Cluster Randomized Designs
• Chapter 9. Cluster Randomized Designs with Three or More Levels
• Chapter 10. Multisite Individually Randomized Designs
• Chapter 11. Multisite Cluster Randomized Designs
• Chapter 12. Designs with Higher-Order Blocking
• Chapter 13. Designs for Evaluating Moderator Effects
• Chapter 14. Moderator Analysis in Cluster Randomized Designs
• Chapter 15. Moderator Analysis in Multisite Individually Randomized Designs
• Chapter 16. Moderator Analysis in Multisite Cluster Randomized Designs
• Chapter 17. Unbalanced Designs
• Chapter 18. Other Designs
• References
• Index