IES Launches New Software to Support Program Evaluation in Education
The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) has launched a new tool that can make it easier and more cost-effective for states and school districts to evaluate the impact of their programs. RCT-YESTM is free, user-friendly software that assists those with a basic understanding of statistics and research design in analyzing data and reporting results from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and other types of evaluation designs.
RCT-YESTM was developed by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. under a contract from the IES National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance. While the software has a simple interface and requires no knowledge of programming, it does not sacrifice rigor. RCT-YESTM uses state-of-the-art statistical methods to analyze data.
The software can be downloaded from the RCT-YESTM website, along with a quick start guide, interactive how-to videos, and a detailed user’s manual. A report properly generated using RCT-YESTM will include all the statistical information necessary for a review by the What Works ClearinghouseTM (WWC). The WWC, another IES investment, reviews high-quality research on interventions and programs to determine what works in education.
The new tool is part of IES’ ongoing efforts to build the capacity of states and school districts to conduct and use high-quality research. Other IES-led efforts include grants for researcher-practitioner partnerships, technical assistance for conducting and using research in each area of the country, and grants to state education agencies to build and use their longitudinal data systems.
For more information on RCT-YESTM, visit www.rct-yes.com.
Reprinted from the IES June 14, 2016 press release.
For further information, read the blog post, RCT-YES: Supporting a Culture of Research Use in Education, by Ruth Curran Neild, delegated director.
