Final Report on the Research Design for Studying Administrative Effects of the Monthly Retrospective Reporting System

摘要

The paper concerns the study of the effect of the monthly reporting system on the costs and organizational systems necessary to administer the AFDC program at the local level. This is the second paper on administrative effects. The first formulated an agenda of the central research questions of interest and discussed a general analytic logic for approaching the questions. It did not address issues of research design and data collection methodology because it was unclear whether each of the demonstration States would design and implement their own research or whether would be a centrally designed research plan. In discussions surrounding that paper, HEW requested that the Abt Associates study team undertake to develop and guide the implementation of a research effort that would be consistent across States and that would respond to the research questions posed in the earlier paper. An interim report on a proposed research design and data collection plan was submitted to HEW in May, 1979. The final report therefore up-dates the May report by including with it a discussion of the specific measurement instruments, sampling and analysis features used in the pilot test.