The National Science Foundation has a policy of, each year, selecting the best young scientists and giving them a 5 year grant to allow them to work on their program of research. These scientists are selected based on the number of publications they have produced in the prior year. All scientists who have published 4 or more articles in the prior years receive these grants. The National Science Foundation wants to find out if this program is effective. The research design that could be used to best test the effect of this program is
A) posttest-only design.
B) regression-discontinuity design.
C) one group pretest-posttest design.
D) pretest-posttest design.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

A regression-discontinuity design is most suitable for this scenario because it allows for the comparison between those who just qualified for the grant (e.g., published exactly 4 articles) and those who just missed qualifying (e.g., published 3 articles). This design effectively assesses the impact of the grant by comparing outcomes on either side of the eligibility cutoff.

The National Science Foundation Has a Policy Of, Each Year