The increasing importance of high-quality evaluative research on health lifestyle change programs is established. Failure to ask the right evaluative research questions and problems of research design are identified as two major reasons for the dearth of well-controlled, interpretable evaluations in this area. Thirteen issues of research design that need to be considered if interpretable answers to evaluative research questions are to be obtained are identified and discussed. Solutions to these problems and design recommendations are offered.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BAILAR, J. C., III
(1980) "Cause and effect in epidemiology: what do we know about hypertriglyceridemia? An editorial commentary."New England J. of Medicine302: 1417-1418.
2.
BARTLETT, E. E.
(1981) "The contribution of school health education to community health promotion: what can we reasonably expect?"Amer. J. of Public Health71: 1384-1391.
3.
BENNETT, C. A.
and A. A. LUMSDAINE [eds.] (1975) Evaluation and Experiment: Some Critical Issues in Assessing Social Programs. New York: Academic Press.
4.
BEST, J. A.
, F. BASS, and L. E. OWEN (1977) "Mode of service delivery in a smoking cessation program for public health."Canadian J. of Public Health68: 469-473.
5.
BEST, J. A.
and B. R. FLAY (1978) "The development and evaluation of behavior modification programmes for health lifestyle modification," in R. J. Lauzon (ed.) Seminar on Evaluation of Health Education and Behavior Modification Programs. Ottawa: Canadian Health Education Society.
6.
BORUCH, R. F.
(1976) "On common contentions about randomized field experiments," in G. V Glass (ed.) Evaluation Studies Review Annual (Vol. 1). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
7.
BORUCH,R. F.
, A. J. McSWEENY, and E. J. SODERSTROM (1978) "Randomized field experiments for program planning, development, and evaluation: an illustrative bibliography."Evaluation Q.2: 655-695.
8.
BURSTEIN, L.
(1980) "The role of levels of analysis in the specification of education effects," in R. Dreeben and J. A. Thomas (eds.) The Analysis of Educational Productivity. Volume 1: Issues in Microanalysis. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.
9.
CAMPBELL, D. T.
and J. C. STANLEY (1966) Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research. Skokie, IL: Rand McNally.
10.
CONNER, R. F.
(1977) "Selecting a control group: an analysis of the randomization process in twelve social reform programs."Evaluation Q.1: 195-244.
11.
COOK, T. D.
and D. T. CAMPBELL (1979) Quasi-Experimentation: Design and Analysis Issues for Field Settings. Skokie, IL: Rand McNally.
12.
COOK
(1976) "The design and conduct of quasi-experiments and true experiments in field settings," in M. D. Dunnette (ed.) Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Research. Skokie, IL: Rand McNally.
13.
COOK, T. D.
and L. C. LEVITON (in press) "Evaluation," in G. Lindzey and E. Aronson (eds.) Handbook of Social Psychology. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
14.
COOK, T. D.
and E. G. McANANY (1979) "Some recent United States experiences with evaluation research, and their possible implications for Latin America," in R. E. Kleine et al. (eds.) Evaluating the Impact of Nutrition and Health Programs. New York: Plenum.
15.
COOK, T. D.
, B. R. FLAY, R. A. HAAG, K. M. HENNIGAN, A. LAGO, L. POSNER, J. RADZIKOWSKI, and B. M. STAW (1977) An Evaluation Model for Assessing the Effects of Peace Corps Projects in Health and Agriculture. Washington, DC: ACTION/Peace Corps.
16.
CRONBACH, L. J.
, S. R. AMBRON, S. M. DORNBUSCH, R. D. HESS, R. C. HORNIK, D. C. PHILLIPS, D. F. WALKER, and S. S. WEINER (1980) Toward Reform of Program Evaluation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
17.
DAVIDSON, P. O.
(1976) "Therapeutic compliance."Canadian Psych. Rev.17:247-259.
18.
DAVIDSON, P. O.
and S. M. DAVIDSON [eds.] (1980) Behavioral Medicine: Changing Health Life Styles. New York: Brunner/ Mazel.
19.
DUNBAR, J. M.
and A. J. STUNKARD (1978) "Adherence to medical regimen," in R. Levy et al. (eds.) Nutrition, Lipids, and Coronary Heart Disease. New York: Raven Press.
20.
EPSTEIN, I.
and T. TRIPODI (1977) Research Techniques for Program Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluating. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
21.
FLAY, B. R.
and T. D. COOK (1981) "Evaluation of mass media prevention campaigns," in R. R. Rice and W. J. Paisley (eds.) Public Communication Campaigns. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
22.
FLAY, B. R.
, DiTECCO and B. P. SCHLEGEL (1980) "Mass media in health promotion: an analysis using an extended information-processing model."Health Education Q.7: 127-147.
23.
FLAY, B. R.
and P. N. HAMID (1977) "Artifact in social psychological research: the subjects' view."New Zealand Psychologist6: 84-96.
24.
GILBERT, J. P.
, B. McPEEK, and F. MOSTELLER (1977) "Statistcs and ethics in surgery and anesthesia."Science198(4318): 684-689. Also in T. D. Cook et al. [eds.] (1978) Evaluation Studies Review Annual (Vol. 3). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
25.
GOODSTADT, M.
(1978) "Alcohol and drug education: models and outcomes."Health Education Monographs6: 263-279.
26.
GREEN, L. W.
(1979) "How to evaluate health promotion."Hospitals53(19): 106-108.
27.
GREEN, L. W.
(1978) "Determining the impact and effectiveness of health education as it relates to federal policy."Health Education Monographs6(Supplement 1): 28-66.
28.
HAYNES, R. B.
, D. W. TAYLOR, and D. L. SACKETT [eds.] (1979) Compliance in Health Care. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
29.
HENNIGAN, K. M.
, B. R. FLAY, and R. A. HAAG (1979) "Clarification of concepts and terms commonly used in evaluative research," in R. E. Kleine et al. (eds.) Evaluating the Impact of Nutrition and Health Programs. New York: Plenum.
30.
JUDD, C. M.
and D. A. KENNY (1981) "Process analysis: estimating mediation in treatment evaluation."Evaluation Rev.5: 602-619.
31.
KAZDIN, A. E.
(1978) "Therapy outcome questions requiring control of credibility and treatment-generated expectancies."Behavior Therapy10: 81-93.
32.
KAZDIN, A. E.
and G. T. WILSON (1978) Evaluation of Behavior Therapy: Issues, Evidence, and Research Strategies. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.
33.
LEON, G. R.
(1976) 'Current directions in the treatment of obesity."Psych. Bull.83: 557-578.
34.
McLEARY, R.
and R. HAY (1980) Applied Time Series Analysis for the Social Sciences. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
35.
OLEARY, K. D.
and T. D. BORKOVEC (1978) "Conceptual, methodological, and ethical problems of placebo groups in psychotherapy research."Amer. Psychologist33: 821-830.
36.
PALMER, E.
(1981) "Shaping persuasion messages with formative research," in R. R. Rice and W. J. Paisley (eds.) Public Communication Campaigns. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
37.
RIECKEN, H. W.
and R. F. BORUCH [eds.] (1974) Social Experimentation. New York: Academic Press.
38.
ROBERTSON, L. S.
(1976) "The great seat belt campaign flop."J. of Communication26(4): 41-45.
39.
ROSENTHAL, R.
and R. I. ROSNOW (1969) Artifact in Behavioral Research. New York: Academic Press.
40.
SCHLEGEL, R. P., J. d'AVERNAS, and J. A. BEST (1980) "Self-management and smoking cessation: a critical analysis and integrative model." Unpublished manuscript, University of Waterloo.
41.
SECHRIST, L.
, S. G. WEST, M. A. PHILLIPS, R. REDNER, and W. YEATON (1979) "Some neglected problems in evaluation research: strength and integrity of treatments," in Evaluation Studies Review Annual (Vol. 4). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
42.
SOLOMON, R. L.
(1949) "An extension of control group design."Psych. Bull.46: 137-150.
43.
Task Force of Stanford Evaluation Consortium
(1976) "Review essay: evaluating the Handbook of Evaluation Research," in G. V Glass (ed.) Evaluation Studies Review Annual (Vol. 1). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
44.
THOMPSON, E. L.
(1978) "Smoking education programs 1960-1976."Amer. J. of Public Health68: 250-257.
45.
THORESON, C. E.
and T. F. COATES (1976) "Behavioral self-control: some clinical concerns," in R. M. Eisler and R. M. Miller (eds.) Advances in Behavior Modification (Vol. 2). New York: Academic Press.
46.
WEBB, E. J.
, D. T. CAMPBELL, R. D. SCHWARTZ, and L. SECHREST (1966) Unobtrusive Measures: Nonreactive Research in the Social Sciences. Skokie, IL: Rand McNally.
47.
WEBER, S. J.
and T. D. COOK (1972) "Subject effects in laboratory research: an examination of subject roles, demand characteristics, and valid inference."Psych. Bull.77: 273-295.
48.
YEATON, W. H.
and R. REDNER (1981) "Measuring strength and integrity of treatments: rationale, techniques, and examples," in R. F. Conner (ed.) Methodological Advances in Evaluation Research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
