It’s easier to preach about the importance of choosing well-tested (aka evidence-based) programs than it is actually to pick one.

Even when researchers have dutifully provided an array of statistics along with some guidance on how to interpret them, the numbers can be confusing and, worse, will sometimes mislead.

So policymakers trying to choose between Program A and Program B can be forgiven for getting lost.

To the rescue comes the Center for the Developing Child at Harvard University. It opened in 2006 with a mission Captain James Kirk might have smiled upon: “to generate, translate and apply knowledge in the service of closing the gap between what we know and what we do to support positive life outcomes for children”.

To that bold end they joined with several other US universities to form the National Forum on Early Childhood Program Evaluation, and the Forum recently published Early Childhood Program Evaluations: A Decision-Maker’s Guide.

In layman’s language, the free ten-page download describes how to use research evidence to make the best policy decisions about early childhood programs – or, for that matter, any other type of human service program.

Rather like the popular for Dummies guides, the authors aim to make a seemingly or actually difficult endeavor simple. In this case, although the language is quite clear and the presentation helpful, the endeavor appears anything but simple after reading.

Indeed, the authors conclude by suggesting that you consider consulting experts rather than trying to make heads or tails of research on your own.

Still, the Harvard guide provides useful pointers to the issues that policymakers – or their expert consultants – should be paying attention to when looking at program evaluations. In particular, they put out red warning flags against:

• any evaluation that does not compare at least two groups (one that participates in the program, one that does not) which are reasonably similar to each other before the program begins
• any evaluation that doesn’t clearly describe how many of the individuals (or families) offered a program actually participated and the quality and quantity of their participation
• any evaluation that doesn’t provide a way to understand the degree to which the program affected participants’ behavior, well-being, etc.

Even more helpful in some cases is information policymakers can use to weigh the benefits of a program against its costs.

Finally, the authors warn against evaluations that don’t describe program participants well. Policymakers need to assess whether those in the evaluated program are sufficiently similar to the individuals or families they intend to serve.

• Early Childhood Program Evaluations: A Decision-Maker’s Guide by the National Forum on Early Childhood Program Evaluation (Co-Chairs Jack P. Shonkoff, Harvard University and Greg J. Duncan, Northwestern University), Center on the Developing Child, Harvard, University, December 2007.