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Evaluation 2022 Equity Working Group Week: Embedding an Equity Focus in Experimental Evaluations by Laura Peck
October 12, 2022
Greetings! I am Dr. LauraPeck, Principal Scientist at Abt Associates and Global Director for Abt’s Research, Monitoring & Evaluation Capability Center. My expertise is in the design, execution, and analysis of impact evaluations that leverage experimental and quasi-experimental designs to estimate impact that have a causal interpretation. I ask that those of you familiar with AEA’s rocky past with government prioritization of these so-called “rigorous” designs put that thinking to the side and be open to taking a fresh look at experiments.
All of the evaluations I engage in are, by necessity, both theory-based and mixed-method. This combination means better understanding the intervention’s implementation details, context, population, and so on—to explore what works, for whom, and under what conditions. I focus especially on subgroup analyses, because it’s oftenwhere the story lies.
How is a focus on equity showing up in my work? It is essential to integrate deeply and fully anequity focus into evaluations of whatever design.