Evaluation with an Experimental Design: The Emergency School Assistance Program.

The Evaluation of the Emergency School Assistance Program (ESAP) for the 1971-72 school year is the first application of full-blown experimental design with randomized experimental and control cases in a federal evaluation of a large scale program. It is also one of the very few evaluations which has shown that federal programs can raise tested academic achievement. Finally, it demonstrated that motivational factors and what are sometimes called noncognitive variables are an important part of the analysis of what happens in schools. A block of ESAP funds was awarded on a random basis to pairs of schools, one member of each pair receiving no funds and serving as control on the other. At the end of the school year, students in both the experimental and control schools received questionnaires and achivement tests; black male high school students were found to score significantly higher in the experimental schools than in the controls. This experience provides virtually the most convincing data that scientific research can provide that the program had a vavorable impact on student test scores. An analysis of the data using an elaborate multiple correlation and regression design was also performed. This analysis, combined with the experiment, gave some useful insights into why ESAP was a success. (Author/JM)