[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
The only way to tell is with a randomized design. For example, at-
risk kids could be invited to take part in the programme, but warned
that they might not be selected. Those randomly not selected are the
control group (perhaps they might be compensated for not being
chosen).
I see your point with this, except I wonder if using such a design would
really advance the process all that much. Invited youth who /want/ to
participate are in their own way biased, don't you think? Granted, from
this pool we would randomly assign participants to two conditions, and
see whether the program yeilds a difference. But the experimental groups
will have been selected from a biased sample, excluding all the youth at
risk that were not interested by the original offer. So we will not know
how generalizable the results are.
But then again, one might say the target population is not youth at risk
in general, but youth at risk that are interested in such programs
(because after all, it is very unlikely we'll ever have youth at risk
that does not want to be there (unless court orders were used, which is
a whole other story).
I'll definitely delve deeper, and let you know what I find later down
the line. Thanks a lot for the great help!
Jean-Marc
If the original Cambridge-Somerville study way back in the 1940's
(see McCord, 1978 again) could do this, surely it could be done
today if the Mounties really want a meaningful evaluation rather than
a public-relations exercise. Incidentally, the surprising conclusion
of the Cambridge-Somerville intervention (which has some similarity
to what the Mounties are doing) and a number of more recent ones (see
McCord, 2003) is that well-intentioned interventions may actually
cause more harm than good. Her 2003 paper also has good references to
the recent literature on the topic of interventions for at-risk
youth. Jean-Marc might also find McCord's impressive publication list
helpful. It's at
http://www.unc.edu/~gsmunc/JoanMcCord/PUBLICATIONS.htm, with quite a
few of them available on-line.
Stephen
References
McCord, J. (1978). A thirty-year follow-up of treatment effects.
American Psychologist, 33, 284-89.
McCord, J. (2003). Cures that harm: Unanticipated outcomes of crime
prevention programs. Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science, 587, 16-30. [on-line at
http://www.unc.edu/~gsmunc/JoanMcCord/CuresThatHarm2003.pdf]
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Department of Psychology fax:(819) 822-9661
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