Abbreviations

Glossary

Academia-based research:  Research that occurs in an academic setting. Typically, academic-based research is large-scale research that relies on government funding after an arduous peer-review process that slows down the momentum gained during the grant-proposal writing process.   

Control:  A condition or variable that remains constant in an empirical endeavor. In BetaGov trials, the control condition is often the existing condition, although it can signify a new condition in which no intervention or interaction is provided.

Defining outcome: An outcome that will tell whether or not an intervention led to process improvement.

Empirical findings: A collective term for the knowledge or source of knowledge acquired by means of the senses, particularly by observation and experimentation. The implementation of randomized controlled trials is one method of acquiring empirical data or empirical findings. Empirically-derived findings that inform practice and policy can be contrasted with practices that aren’t tested, but are typically derived from intuition or by consensus.

Experimental condition: The trial condition or intervention that is often the purpose of the trial. The experimental condition is typically compared to the control condition.  

Intervention: An intervention is some activity that occurs as a possible means to improvement. In BetaGov, an intervention is the target activity that is being investigated or compared to a control condition. An intervention is typically considered the experimental condition (the condition that is being investigated).

Pilot trials:  Exploratory studies limited in size and scope that give insight into the actions, efficacy, and safety of a device, mechanism, and/or other treatment. These typically smaller trials can lead to larger trials that build on the pilot findings.

Positive control study:  A trial that provides treatment or other intervention with a known response as one condition, so that the positive response condition can be compared to the unknown response of an alternate intervention.            

Pracademia:  A program to train practitioners on the knowledge that informs academic-type research. Included are webinars, tutorials, and discussions on key issues involved in designing, implementing, and overseeing a randomized controlled trial. Completion of this training leads to “pracademics” – practitioners who have the ability to understand, design, and implement RCTs.

Pracademic: An individual practitioner who completes training on the design and conduct of research, allowing him/her to function as an “academic-practitioner.”

Practitioner: An individual who is qualified or registered to practice a particular occupation, profession, or religion.   In BetaGov, practitioners are those individuals who work in one of our target fields of criminal justice/corrections, social/human services, education, and health.

Process evaluation:  A series of actions taken to analyze existing processes and determine whether the process(es) are effective, useful, or satisfying. Often a process evaluation is the first step in changing practice and processes.  

Process improvement: A series of actions taken to identify, analyze and improve existing procedures and processes within an organization to meet its goals and objectives. Process improvement projects may be aimed at activities to improve a wide range of in-house procedures. Examples that aim to improve an agency’s procedures (hence improve practice and outcomes) include changes in paperwork processing and changes in delivering a health care intervention.

Randomization:  A method that assigns individuals or units to trial conditions based on chance alone. A number of methods for random assignment may be considered, including:

Simple random sample: Randomization based on a single sequence of randomly generated condition assignments.

Stratified sample: A sample randomized to trial conditions that considers specific characteristics of the sample in the randomization assignments. For example, a trial that randomizes participants to drug treatment conditions may separately randomize the sample based on characteristics known to be associated with drug treatment outcomes- as such, gender and age may be stratifying variables requiring that randomization be generated separately by gender and age groups.

Batch randomization:  A type of randomization that randomly assigns a group of participants, or units, at the same time.

Trickle-in randomization: The process of randomizing participants individually as they enter the trial or at some other time-point that occurs distinctly for each participant. 

Target Population: The entire group of individuals or objects from which a trial sample will be selected. Examples of target populations include high risk students, prison inmates, and needy families. Results of trials with appropriate samples are often generalized to the entire population.