Cost Analysis Standards & Guidelines 1.1. Cost Analysis in Practice (CAP) Project. Revised

The purpose of these guidelines is to support the execution of cost analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis of educational programs. The steps involved in conducting a cost analysis are presented in four stages with explicit examples used throughout: designing your cost analysis, collecting cost data using the ingredients method, analyzing cost data, and reporting your cost analysis. The guidelines include numerous references and links to additional tools, resources, and sources of data to facilitate economic evaluations in education. The guidelines are designed to assist researchers in complying with the Institute of Education Sciences' SEER requirement to analyze the costs of educational interventions or, where relevant, costs compared to a control or comparison condition. They also support researchers in executing cost analyses that comport with the Standards for Economic Evaluation of Educational and Social Programs which recommend a standardized approach to facilitate accurate and comparable cost estimates of educational programs, practices, and policies, including the provision of a reference case analysis.