Science and Success in Developing Countries: Holistic Programs That Work to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, HIV & Sexually Transmitted Infections

Full Study Report [HTML] [PDF]
Executive Summary [HTML] [PDF]

Participant Groups

• Control or comparison group = young people similar to the intervention group, and who did not receive the program being evaluated.
• Treatment or intervention group = the young people who received the program being evaluated.

Evaluation Design

• Experimental design = an evaluation that gathers a set of individuals equally eligible and willing to participate in a program and randomly divides them into two groups: those who receive the intervention (treatment group) and those from whom the intervention is withheld (control group).
• Non-experimental design = an evaluation design for use when it is not possible to select a control group, identify a suitable comparison group through matching methods, or use reflexive comparisons.
• Quasi-experimental design = an evaluation that constructs a comparison group by identifying non-program participants comparable in essential characteristics to participants.

Related Terms

• Replication = the same program, evaluated in another place with different young people.
• Fidelity = careful replication of a program to include all its elements as included in the original evaluation. Where programs were altered, lack of fidelity should be noted.
• For Use With = used here to denote the populations of young people with whom evaluation has shown a particular program to be most effective as well as the population for whom it was designed.
• Significant = statistically significant, or meaningful difference, as determined by evaluation.