Non-experimental Quantitative Research

Designs (NEQDs)

What Are They?• A research design in which the

researcher measures or observes subjects or variables without attempting to introduce a treatment.

How Could I Use NEQDs for Program Evaluation?

Explore the relationship(s) between two or more variables

or elements of a program.

Use the knowledge of two correlated variables to inform

practice or program revisions and implementation.

NEQDs can require the usage of an underling theory to

explain or interpret correlations. Control variables are then employed to further rule out the effects of

extraneous variables on the variables that a theory may have causally

linked.

Types of NEQDStructural Equation

Modeling

Path Analysis, Factor Analysis

Multiple Regression

Simple Regressi

on

Examples

Examples (Simple Regression)

+0.75

+0.33

+0.68

+0.52

Examples (Multiple Regression)

+0.78

+0.12

Examples (Multiple Regression)

.55

.12

What if We Want More?

What tools are available to analyze systems with multiple (and possible

causal) relationships?

A Little More…Path Analysis

A Little More…Path Analysis

Advantages

• Allows for:– the study of independent variables over

which the research cannot have any control.

– the manipulation of variables in theory that cannot often be manipulated in practice.

– the study of variables as they exist.

Disadvantages Determining causality and/or the

direction of causality. Mutual causality Selection bias Spurious Correlations