PUBPOL 5830

Randomized Controlled Trials for Policy and Society

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2025-2026 Catalog.

This course is designed for graduate students interested in learning how to evaluate the quality of, design, conduct, and analyze data for randomized controlled trials (RCTs). The goal is to teach students why RCTs are the scientific gold standard for causal evidence, how to assess published or proposed RCTs, avoid common errors in designing their own RCTs, conducting RCTs, and analyzing the data from RCTs.

Enrollment Priority Recommended Prerequisite: Knowledge of programming (preferably R) and inferential statistics, especially linear regression.

Last 4 Terms Offered (None)

Learning Outcomes

• Review the quality of proposed and conducted randomized controlled trials.
• Design high-quality randomized controlled trials.
• Conduct randomized controlled trials.
• Analyze data for randomized controlled trials.

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