A team of researchers is asked to determine the effectiveness of a psychological intervention on the reduction of school violence.What is the best method the researchers could use to test whether the intervention worked?

Question

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The best method to test the effectiveness of the psychological intervention would be to conduct a randomized controlled trial where schools are assigned either to receive the intervention or not based on random assignment. This allows for the comparison of the intervention group to the control group and allows the researchers to determine if the intervention was effective in reducing school violence. Self-report surveys and observations may be useful in providing additional information, but are limited in their ability to truly determine if the intervention is effective. Comparing the level of violence before and after the intervention may be useful, but without a control group it is difficult to know if the reduction in violence is truly due to the intervention.

A Team of Researchers Is Asked to Determine the Effectiveness