The federal Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation in the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, recently released two new reports on design options for an evaluation of coaching teachers in Head Start programs. These reports were authored by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), MDRC, MEF Associates, and Child Trends. The reports are:

Design Options for an Evaluation of Head Start Coaching: Design Report by AIR, MDRC, MEF Associates, and Child Trends — The proposed Head Start Coaching Study will evaluate specific dimensions of coaching that may impact teacher and classroom practices in Head Start and other early childhood settings. This report provides recommendations for a variety of aspects of the study, including the purpose and research questions, impact study design, implementation research, cost analysis, measures, and logistical challenges for carrying out the design.

Design Options for an Evaluation of Head Start Coaching: Review of Methods for Evaluating Components of Social Interventions by Marie-Andrée Somers (MDRC), Linda Collins (Penn State University), and Michelle Maier (MDRC) — Evaluating multicomponent social interventions as a whole makes it difficult to determine which individual components are most effective and economical —leaving evaluators, policymakers, and program developers with a “black box.” This report reviews potential experimental design options that get inside the “black box” of social interventions by estimating the effects of individual components. Five experimental designs are discussed: factorial designs, comparative treatment designs, the individual experiments design, crossover designs, and adaptive clinical trials. Individual components of coaching interventions in Head Start contexts are used as an example throughout the report to describe and compare these designs.  The review concludes that factorial designs are usually the most appropriate design for evaluating the effects of individual components.