Experimental research is one of the evaluation methods. By using advanced designs, true experiments can be achieved with randomly assigned control groups such as allocating scarce resources by lottery, the use of staged innovation, and the pilot project(Campbell, 1969). However, the experimental research may cost a lot of time by analyzing plenty of answers. Cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis are two tools to quantitatively evaluate the program. Sometimes, the experimental research is qualitative, so are there any possibilities to transfer the qualitative results from experimental researches into quantitative data so as to improve the efficiency of experimental research?

There is a project called 1 in 5 in Edinburgh which attracts me a lot. The 1 in 5 project began in August 2015, piloting in 6 schools in Edinburgh. It is centered on a programme of work to: raise awareness and understanding of child poverty and its impact on educational outcomes; explore the cost of the school day; and, examine the impact of poverty-related stigma. One of these goals is to raise the awareness of children poverty. It is extremely qualitative and hard to evaluate. Based on the knowledge in evaluation methods course, I have got some ideas to efficiently evaluate the degree of awareness of children poverty.

The best method for identifying issues surrounding unquantifiable benefits and costs is to relate them to the final dollar results(Cellini&Kee，2010). In this project, the teacher and parents will be trained to advance the understanding of children poverty with some skills and tips to help the children be confident without being excluded by others. In this case, the experimental research, cost-benefit analysis, and cost-effectiveness analysis can be combined to accurately evaluate the change of parents’ and teachers’ awareness of children poverty. Firstly, there should be control groups with and without training on children poverty. Secondly, transfer the awareness into the willingness, in the experiments, there can be some questions like how much time are you willing to get the training or how many time have you spent on these courses and so on. Then by using average wage per hour, the willingness can be changed into dollar results. Once collecting enough data, the change of awareness of children poverty can be quantitatively evaluated.

When evaluating a project related to social policy, the effects can be divided into direct effects and indirect effect. The experimental researches can easily evaluate the direct effect. The cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis can help calculate the indirect effects. For example, in the children poverty project, the awareness as a direct effect can be easily measured by experimental research. However, some indirect effects like the negative results of the project such as unequal feelings of other children cannot be easily measured. These indirect positive or negative effects can be regarded as benefits and costs in the cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis. By combining these two methods, the result can be more reliable and obvious.

Additionally, when persuading the policy-makers to accept policy suggestions, the qualitative results are not attractive enough to both policy-makers and tax-payers. But if these qualitative goals can be changed into quantitative results especially dollar results, it will be more persuasive. Also, such dollar result measurements are more attractive for government staff as these dollar results can obviously confirm their achievements. To conclude, the combination of experimental research and cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis can transfer a complicated qualitative evaluation into a concise quantitative evaluation which not only makes the project accessible for the public, but attractive to the policy-makers.