The potential impact and biases introduced by pretesting were studied in a prevention program for improving parenting skills of low-socioeconomic-status (SES) families with preschool children. A total of 65 families were randomly assigned to four variations of pretests, posttests, and 6-month follow-up. Subjects not pretested showed three times the attrition of the pretested subjects at the outset (p < .02). No contamination of outcome variables due to pretesting was evident. Implications are discussed within the perspective that certain types of pretesting may represent potent preparatory techniques for highrisk clients.
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