Title：The Inability of Randomized Experiments to Improve Program Performance: Using Comparative Effectiveness Monitoring to Learn from Successful and Unsuccessful Programs(The case of workforce development programs)
Speaker：Douglas J. Besharov
Professor，School of Public Policy，University of Maryland
Time: Tuesday, Oct.30th, 2018, 13:30-15:30
Venue: Room 428, School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University
Lecture Synopsis
The lecturer plans to describe the misplaced confidence in randomized control trials (mainly because of their sparseness but also because they take too long, usually lack generalizability, and, unrecognized by many, have their own problems with causal validity) and then argue for systematic and scientifically rigorous comparisons across programs. Program improvement can then be based on identifying what characteristics and practices seem to lead to high-performance and low-performance.
Speaker Biography
Doug Besharov was the first director of the U.S. National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, from 1975 to 1979. With staff in Washington and each of the ten federal regions, the National Center supported research, demonstrations, training, technical assistance, and service projects in all parts of the country. From 1991 to 1992, he served as the administrator of the AEI/White House Working Seminar on Integrated Services for Children and Families, a project designed to improve the delivery of services to disadvantaged children and their families. Besharov's most recent book is Recognizing Child Abuse: A Guide for the Concerned, which is designed to help professionals and laypersons identify and report suspected child abuse. He has written or edited fourteen other books. He has also written over 150 articles and contributes to the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the American Enterprise Magazine.
