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336 PART IV: Applied ResearchAs before, a dashed line is used to indicate that the control group and theexperimental group were not randomly assigned. The interrupted time serieswith nonequivalent control group design permits researchers to rule outmany threats due to history. As was mentioned earlier, Campbell (1969) usedtraffic-fatality data obtained from neighboring states to provide a comparisonwith traffic-fatality data following the crackdown on speeding in Connecticut.Although traffic fatalities in Connecticut showed a decline immediately followingthe crackdown, data from comparable states did not exhibit any suchdecline. This finding tends to rule out claims that the decrease in traffic fatalitiesin Connecticut were due to factors such as favorable weather conditions,improved automobile design, or any other factors that were likely shared byConnecticut and the neighboring states.PROGRAM EVALUATIONKey Concept• Program evaluation is used to assess the effectiveness of human serviceorganizations and provide feedback to administrators about their services.• Program evaluators assess needs, process, outcome, and efficiency of socialservices.• The relationship between basic research and applied research is reciprocal.• Despite society’s reluctance to use experiments, true experiments and quasiexperimentscan provide excellent approaches for evaluating social reforms.Organizations that produce goods have a ready-made index of success. Ifa company is set up to make microprocessors, its success is ultimately determinedby its profits from the sale of microprocessors. At least theoretically, theefficiency and effectiveness of the organization can be easily assessed by examiningthe company’s financial ledgers. Increasingly, however, organizations ofa different sort play a critical role in our society. Because these organizationstypically provide services rather than goods, Posavac (2011) refers to them ashuman service organizations. For example, hospitals, schools, police departments,and government agencies provide a variety of services ranging fromemergency room care to fire prevention inspections. Because profit- making isnot their goal, some other method must be found to distinguish between effectiveand ineffective agencies. One useful approach to assessing the effectivenessof human service organizations is program evaluation.According to Posavac (2011), program evaluation isa methodology to learn the depth and extent of need for a human service andwhether the service is likely to be used, whether the service is sufficiently intensiveto meet the unmet needs identified, and the degree to which the serviceis offered as planned and actually does help people in need at a reasonable costwithout unacceptable side effects. (p. 1)The definition of program evaluation includes several components; wewill take up each of these components in turn. Posavac emphasizes, however,that the overarching goal of program evaluation is to provide feedback regardinghuman service activities. Program evaluations are designed to provide feedbackto the administrators of human service organizations to help them decide what