| Field Experiments in Political Science and Public Policy: Practical Lessons in Design and Delivery Subjects: Politics & International Relations; Research Methods ; Government; Political Research Methods; Public Administration & Management; Quantitative and Statistical Methods ; Quantitative Methods; Statistics; Policy Analysis; Public Policy; Experimental Design and Research Methods; Field experiments -- randomized controlled trials -- have become ever more popular in political science, as well as in other disciplines, such as economics, social policy and development. Policy-makers have also increasingly used randomization to evaluate public policies, designing trials of tax reminders, welfare policies and international aid programs to name just a few of the interventions tested in this way. Field experiments have become successful because they assess causal claims in ways that other methods of evaluation find hard to emulate. Peter John is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy in the Department of Political Science, University College London. He is an expert in the study of public policy, and has pioneered the use of experiments in the study of civic participation in the UK. |