Abstract
I concentrate on a subset of the methodological issues raised in the chapters of Part IV of this volume. First, is the multiple testing problem raised by Moore and Wood (Chap. 13). I point to the advantages of replication across experimental sites or across experiments themselves as a useful antidote for multiple testing bias. Second, as detailed by Metzler, Sanders and Rusby (Chap. 12), family-based interventions typically target a number of individuals—e.g., both parent and children—which raises the problem of how to weight impacts across different kinds of family members to arrive at some overall judgment of whether a given intervention was beneficial. Third, interventions conducted in a number of sites can provide powerful means for estimating the magnitude of some of the nonexperimental linkages in hypothesized theories of change using the method of instrumental variables. Finally, I point to an underemphasized problem in the chapters in Part IV—the fact that a given treatment may have very different kinds of effects for different types of families or individuals.
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Duncan, G. (2014). Methods in Multi-site Trials of Family-based Interventions. In: McHale, S., Amato, P., Booth, A. (eds) Emerging Methods in Family Research. National Symposium on Family Issues, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01562-0_15
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