Making Your Case: Using R for Program Evaluation

by Charles Auerbach, Wendy Zeitlin

Overview

There is a growing need for research within practice settings. Increasing competition for funding requires organizations to demonstrate that the funding they are seeking is going towards effective programming. Additionally, the evidence-based practice movement is generally pushing organizations towards research activities, both as producers and consumers.There have been many books written about research methodology and data analysis in the helping professions, and many books have been written about using R to analyze and present data; however, this book specifically addresses using R to evaluate programs in organizational settings.

This book is divided into three sections. The first section addresses background information that is helpful in conducting practice-based research. The second section of the book provides necessary background to begin working with R. Topics include how to download R and RStudio, navigation, R packages, basic R functions, and importing data. This section also introduces The Clinical Record, a freely available database program to help organizations record and track client information. The remainder of the book uses case studies to illustrate how to use R to conduct program evaluations. Techniques include data description and visualization, bivariate analysis, simple and multiple regression, and logistic regression. The final chapter illustrates a comprehensive summary of the skills demonstrated throughout the book using The Clinical Record as a data repository.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190228088
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	07/02/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	642,071
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Dr. Auerbach is a professor at Yeshiva University and a well-known research methodologist. In addition to SSD for R, Dr. Auerbach was the lead author of SINGWIN, a forerunner of SSD for R. He has published over 80 articles in peer-reviewed publications, and is also the author of multiple book chapters.

Dr. Zeitlin is an assistant professor at Yeshiva University's Wurzweiler School of Social Work where she teaches courses in single-subject research, statistics, evidence-based social work, child welfare, and cultural competence. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, and she is a frequent presenter at nationally recognized conferences.

Table of Contents

Contents
1 - Introduction to Program Evaluation in Social Service Agencies
2 - Issues in Program Evaluation
3 - Getting Started With R
4 - Getting Your Data Into R
5 - Basic Graphics with R
6- Making Your Case By Describing Your Data
7- Making Your Case By Looking at Factors Related to A Desired Outcome
8 - Making Your Case Using Linear Regression with R
9 - Making Your Case Using Logistic Regresion with R
10 - Bringing It All Together: Using the Clinical Record to Evaluate a Program
References
Appendix A - Resources for Research Methods
Appendix B - Terminology Used in This Book
Appendix C - R Packages Referred to in This Book
Appendix D - Clinical Record/Filemaker Field Names
Index
R Functions Index