Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Evaluation Review
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Greenberg, D.
Right arrow Articles by Wiseman, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Greenberg, D.
Right arrow Articles by Wiseman, M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Explaining Variation in the Effects of Welfare-To-Work Programs

David Greenberg

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Robert Meyer

University of Wisconsin

Charles Michalopoulos

MDRC

Michael Wiseman

George Washington University

Evaluations of government-funded training programs often combine results from similar operations in multiple sites. Findings inevitably vary. It is common to relate site-to-site variations in outcomes to variations in program design, participant characteristics, and the local environment. Frequently, such connections are constructed in a narrative synthesis of multisite results. This article uses findings from the evaluations of California's Greater Avenues for Independence (GAIN) program and the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS) to illustrate why it is important to question the legitimacy of such syntheses. The discussion is carried out using a simple multilevel evaluation model that incorporates models of both individual outcomes within sites and variation in program effects across sites. The results indicate that tempting generalizations about GAIN and NEWWS effects are statistically unjustified but that significant progress might be made in identifying the determinants of program effects in future demonstrations with some changes in evaluation strategy.

Key Words: evaluation • training programs • welfare-to-work • synthesis • multisite • multilevel

Evaluation Review, Vol. 27, No. 4, 359-394 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/0193841X03254347
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?