Designing a Cost-Effective Field Trial for an Intervention in a Messy System With Multiple, Interacting Variables
The randomized field trial is an expensive, albeit highly regarded, methodology to build knowledge. Medicine and pharmacology can afford such expense because of the potential remuneration resulting from an effective, FDA approved intervention. However, can the educational arena afford to build knowledge in a similar way? Using the MSPinNYC as a case study, we demonstrate one way to create a bundled intervention that can be subjected to a narrower, and consequently less expensive, field study. The extent to which a smaller study can produce significant results remains to be seen. However, creating a bundle of several key features that has, in another setting, proven to have significant impact is a potential cost-effective way to build knowledge from the randomized field trial method.
