Field Experiments: Design, Analysis, and Interpretation

by Alan Gerber, Donald P. Green

A brief, authoritative introduction to field experimentation in the social sciences. Written by two leading experts on experimental methods, this concise text covers the major aspects of experiment design, analysis, and interpretation in clear language. Students learn how to design randomized experiments, analyze the data, and interpret the findings. Beyond the authoritative coverage of the basic methodology, the authors include numerous features to help students achieve a deeper understanding of field experimentation, including rich examples from the social science literature, problem sets and discussions, data sets, and further readings.

Genres: Science, Research, Textbooks, Economics

512 pages, Paperback

First published May 31, 2012

Reviews

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to preface this review by saying that I've never been a big fan of statistics. I've always had a knack for math but statistics always seemed out of reach. This all changed while reading this book (and taking the class Experiments and Causality during my time in UC Berkeley's Masters of Information and Data Science program). Suddenly, everything clicked and I started actually understanding the *intuition* behind statistics, why it's used, and why it's important.

The case studies in this book are very much worth reading. If possible, skip all the heavy mathematical sections. There are better resources for learning the theory behind these topics. And lastly, maybe I just don't know where to look, but I recommend buying this book if statistics is in your future. The topics covered are not readily available online so having this book as a resource is a great idea.

[Dylan Groves · Rating 4 out of 5]

really good, i cant imagine reading this without also taking the class. randomization, exclusion, non-interference.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very dense, especially if new to statistical work

[Shangyun Lu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A detailed and systematic guide book for designing and conducting randomized field experiments. This is book is used as the textbook of one of my statistics courses in my graduate school.

[Aisling Scott]

One of the best books on casual inference in experiments. It explains all the possible pitfalls in experiments as well as a step by step on the importance of certain analyses. Highly recommend for any social scientist.

[Gaurav · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps the single best introductory book on the topic.
Chapter 5's organization could be improved. And the book could do with a chapter of shortcomings of field experiments.