THE USE OF EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN IN EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION

Considerable controversy has existed concerning the utility of experimental design in educational evaluation. The polar positions are that experimental design has no utility in educational evaluation and that experimental design is the only valid evaluation strategy. This article examines these positions in terms of conceptualizations of evaluation according to the‘LCIPP Evaluation Model “and of experimental design according to the “true comparative experiment.” An alternative position including three main points is developed: (a) The methodology of educational evaluation includes much more than the methodology of experimental design; (b) Experimental design does have potential utility in the areas of input and product evaluation, but not within the areas of context and process evaluation; (c) The utility of experimental design can be increased by following a set of procedures that do not require the use of common criterion instruments and uniform decision rules for all students in an experiment; this allows judgment of a program in terms of the number of students for whom it was successful.