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Use of Archival Data To Select and Assign Schools in a Drug Prevention Trial

NCJ Number
141976
Journal
Evaluation Review Volume: 17 Issue: 2 Dated: (April 1993) Pages: 159-181
Author(s)
C W Dent; S Sussman; B R Flay
Date Published
1993
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This article presents a method for using school-level characteristics in the description of the sample and the random assignment of schools in school-based drug prevention trials, based on an analysis of data from 35 schools in Los Angeles County (Calif.).
Abstract
These trials typically encounter large variations in school composition and the levels of preintervention behavior. Such variations may inhibit efforts to maximize the internal and external validity of the findings of a field study. However, the use of multivariate canonical techniques to examine the usefulness of the archival data for the 35 schools revealed that a small set of attributes could efficiently predict the observed school-level variations in smoking tobacco and other drug use. The attributes included school size, ethnic composition, socioeconomic status, and student achievement. Results suggest that these attributes should be used by other school-based studies to enhance experimental field research. Figures, tables, appended tables, notes, and 16 references