Regression Discontinuity Designs in Counseling Intervention Research and Program Evaluation: A Primer on a Strategy for Making Causal Inferences.

The move toward evidence-based practice within counseling intervention research continues to grow. However, there are many practical barriers to implementing research designs that can support causal claims regarding counseling intervention efficacy. Overcoming these hurdles serves a larger goal of improving client care and further legitimizing the counseling profession. This article outlines an underused research design called regression discontinuity (RD), one of the strongest quasi-experimental designs available. RD allows researchers to use a cutoff score to determine treatment group assignment in situations where a randomized control trial is not feasible or ethical, such as when assigning care based on need consistent with the social justice values of the field. Historically, RD is rarely employed in counseling research. Therefore, to facilitate use, we provide a primer on key RD design concepts along with a concrete demonstration of the design, data analysis, and interpretation. We review the causal logic of the basic RD design followed by two data outcomes for a hypothetical scenario. Data and SPSS syntax are provided to allow readers to follow along and conduct their own analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]