Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis - the primary methods for economic evaluation of public policy - are typically justified insofar as they improve decision-making. Here, we provide an alternative justification: these methods should be applied to improve educational evaluation and research practice. In this paper, we describe six "flags" for educational research evaluations, i.e. six areas where we believe that educational research would be enhanced if economic methods were applied more intensively. These flags relate to: outcome specification; treatment contrast; implementation fidelity; the role of mediators; power of the test; and meta-analysis. For each flag, we provide a case study example of how economic analysis can complement and augment current research practices in education.