Randomized Controlled Trials: How Can We Know “What Works”?

Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 29 (3):265-292 (2017)
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Abstract

ABSTRACT“Evidence-based” methods, which most prominently include randomized controlled trials, have gained increasing purchase as the “gold standard” for assessing the effect of public policies. But the enthusiasm for evidence-based research overlooks questions about the reliability and applicability of experimental findings to diverse real-world settings. Perhaps surprisingly, a qualitative study of British educators suggests that they are aware of these limitations and therefore take evidence-based findings with a much larger grain of salt than do policy makers. Their experience suggests that the real world is more heterogeneous than the world imagined by evidence-based policy enthusiasts.

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Author Profiles

Nick Cowen
University of Lincoln
Nancy Cartwright
London School of Economics

Citations of this work

Disagreement about Evidence-based Policy.Nick Cowen & Nancy Cartwright - forthcoming - In Maria Baghramian, J. Adam Carter & Richard Rowland (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Disagreement. Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge.
Evidence of mechanisms in evidence-based policy.Saúl Pérez-González - 2024 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 103 (C):95-104.

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References found in this work

Causes and Conditions.J. L. Mackie - 1965 - American Philosophical Quarterly 2 (4):245 - 264.
The Ethics of Nudge.Luc Bovens - 2008 - In Mats J. Hansson & Till Grüne-Yanoff (eds.), Preference Change: Approaches from Philosophy, Economics and Psychology. Springer, Theory and Decision Library A. pp. 207-20.
Are rcts the gold standard?Nancy Cartwright - 2007 - Biosocieties 1 (1):11-20.

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