ERIC Number: EJ1482117
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Oct
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0193-841X
EISSN: EISSN-1552-3926
Available Date: 0000-00-00
The Case for Preregistering Quasi-Experimental Program and Policy Evaluations
Evaluation Review, v49 n5 p931-945 2025
The recognition that researcher discretion coupled with unconscious biases and motivated reasoning sometimes leads to false findings ("p-hacking") led to the broad embrace of study preregistration and other open-science practices in experimental research. Paradoxically, the preregistration of quasi-experimental studies remains uncommon although such studies involve far more discretionary decisions and are the most prevalent approach to making causal claims in the social sciences. I discuss several forms of recent empirical evidence indicating that questionable research practices contribute to the comparative unreliability of quasi-experimental research and advocate for adopting the preregistration of such studies. The implementation of this recommendation would benefit from further consideration of key design details (e.g., how to balance data cleaning with credible preregistration) and a shift in research norms to allow for appropriately nuanced sensemaking across prespecified, confirmatory results and other exploratory findings.
Descriptors: Quasiexperimental Design, Program Evaluation, Policy Analysis, Research Problems, Research Administration, Access to Information
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: https://sagepub-com.bibliotheek.ehb.be
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

Peer reviewed
Direct link
