QUASI-

EXPERIMENTAL
NON-EQUIVALENT CONTROL GROUP DESIGN
AND
TIME SERIES DESIGN
 What is Quasi-
Experimental?
• It is simple defined as not a true experiment. Since the
main component of a true experiment is randomly
assigned groups, this means that quasi-experimental
does not have randomly assigned groups
• Researchers can gather more data through
scheduling more observation or finding more existing
measures. It is an empirical interventional study used
to estimate the causal impact of an intervention on
target population without random assignments
1 Quasi-Experimental 06.20.2019
 Purpose of Quasi-
Experimental
o Quasi experiments are studies that aim to
evaluate interventions but that do not use
randomization. Like randomized trials, quasi
experiments aim to demonstrate causality
between an intervention and an outcome.
o Quasi-experimental research involves the
manipulation of an independent variable without
the random assignment of participants to
conditions or orders of conditions. Among the
important types are nonequivalent groups
designs, pretest-posttest, and interrupted time-
series designs.

2 Purpose 06.20.2019
 2 Design of Quasi-
Experimental

o NON-EQUIVALENT CONTROL GROUP DESIGN

o TIME SERIES DESIGN

3 2 Design of Quasi-Experimental 06.20.2019

 NON-EQUIVALENT
CONTROL GROUP
DESIGN
o It is defined as an experiment where existing
groups are not divided. Or more simply, the
researchers cannot randomly assign the
participants. Groups are chosen out of
convenience.

4 NON-EQUIVALENT CONTROL GROUP DESIGN 06.20.2019

 Situation 1
o Evaluation of support group interventions for children in troubled families: study protocol for a quasi-
experimental control group study.
o Skerfving, Annemi; Johansson, Fredrik; Elgán, Tobias H
o 2014-01-24
o Support groups for children in troubled families are available in a majority of Swedish municipalities. They are
used as a preventive effort for children in families with different parental problems such as addiction to
alcohol/other drugs, mental illness, domestic violence, divorce situations, or even imprisonment. Children from
families with these problems are a well-known at-risk group for various mental health and social problems.
Support groups aim at strengthening children's coping behaviour, to improve their mental health and to prevent
a negative psycho-social development. To date, evaluations using a control-group study design are scarce. The
aim of the current study is to evaluate the effects of support groups. This paper describes the design of an
effectiveness study, initially intended as a randomized controlled trial, but instead is pursued as a quasi-
experimental study using a non-randomized control group. The aim is to include 116 children, aged 7-13Â years
and one parent/another closely related adult, in the study. Participants are recruited via existing support groups in
the Stockholm county district and are allocated either into an intervention group or a waiting list control group,
representing care as usual. The assessment consists of questionnaires that are to be filled in at baseline and at
four months following the baseline. Additionally, the intervention group completes a 12-month follow-up. The
outcomes include the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ S11-16), the Kids Coping Scale, the "Ladder of
life" which measures overall life satisfaction, and "Jag tycker jag är" (I think I am) which measures self-perception
and self-esteem. The parents complete the SDQ P4-16 (parent-report version) and the Swedish scale
"Familjeklimat" (Family Climate), which measures the emotional climate in the family. There is a need for
evaluating the effects of support groups targeted to children from troubled families.
5 Situation
 Situation 2
o Imagine, for example, that students in one school are given a pretest on their
attitudes toward drugs, then are exposed to an anti-drug program, and
finally, are given a posttest. Students in a similar school are given the pretest,
not exposed to an anti-drug program, and finally, are given a posttest. Again,
if students in the treatment condition become more negative toward drugs,
this change in attitude could be an effect of the treatment, but it could also
be a matter of history or maturation. If it really is an effect of the treatment,
then students in the treatment condition should become more negative than
students in the control condition. But if it is a matter of history (e.g., news of a
celebrity drug overdose) or maturation (e.g., improved reasoning), then
students in the two conditions would be likely to show similar amounts of
change. This type of design does not completely eliminate the possibility of
confounding variables, however. Something could occur at one of the schools
but not the other (e.g., a student drug overdose), so students at the first
school would be affected by it while students at the other school would not.
5 Situation
 Situation 3
o Returning to the example of evaluating a new measure of teaching
third graders, this study could be improved by adding a pretest of
students’ knowledge of fractions. The changes in scores from
pretest to posttest would then be evaluated and compared across
conditions to determine whether one group demonstrated a
bigger improvement in knowledge of fractions than another. Of
course, the teachers’ styles, and even the classroom environments
might still be very different and might cause different levels of
achievement or motivation among the students that are
independent of the teaching intervention. Once again, differential
history also represents a potential threat to internal validity. If
asbestos is found in one of the schools causing it to be shut down
for a month then this interruption in teaching could produce a
difference across groups on posttest scores.
6 Situation
 TIME SERIES DESIGN
o A time series is a continuous sequence of observations
on a population, taken repeatedly (normally at equal
intervals) over time. In an ITS study, a time series of a
particular outcome of interest is used to establish an
underlying trend, which is ‘interrupted’ by an
intervention at a known point in time.
o It is also a set of measurements taken at intervals over
a period of time

7 TIME SERIES DESIGN 06.20.2019

 TIME SERIES DESIGN
o Interrupted time series (ITS) analysis is a valuable study design
for evaluating the effectiveness of population-level health
interventions that have been implemented at a clearly defined
point in time. It is increasingly being used to evaluate the
effectiveness of interventions ranging from clinical therapy to
national public health legislation. Whereas the design shares
many properties of regression-based approaches in other
epidemiological studies, there are a range of unique features
of time series data that require additional methodological
considerations.

8 TIME SERIES DESIGN 06.20.2019

 Situation 1
o For example, a manufacturing company might
measure its workers’ productivity each week for a
year. In an interrupted time series-design, a time
series like this one is “interrupted” by a
treatment. In one classic example, the treatment
was the reduction of the work shifts in a factory
from 10 hours to 8 hours (Cook & Campbell,
1979)[5]. Because productivity increased rather
quickly after the shortening of the work shifts,
and because it remained elevated for many
months afterward, the researcher concluded that
the shortening of the shifts caused the increase
in productivity.
9 Situation 06.20.2019
 Situation 2
o For example, researchers might examine the
yearly test scores of students at a given school
for several years both before and after the
implementation of an extended school day; in
this situation the yearly tests scores represent the
time-series data and the change to an extended
school day is the naturally occurring, quasi-
experimental treatment.

10 Situation 06.20.2019
 SUMMARY
o Quasi-experimental and true experimental research designs
both attempt to determine causal relationships by applying a
treatment or condition to one group and comparing the
outcome with a control group.
o Aim to evaluate interventions but that do not use
randomization.
o Involves the manipulation of an independent variable without
the random assignment of participants to conditions or orders
of conditions.
o 2 Design which is “Non-equivalent Control Group Design” and
“Time Series Design”

11 SUMMARY 06.20.2019
THANK YOU!
Group 4
Petil, Jasper
Pingoy, Angelika
Ramirez, Margarita
Sy, Austine Hubert

Sobredo, Marcelo