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This article explores the rationales offered in the evaluation literature for studying the processes involved in programme implementation, and their relationship with current arguments about the use of experimental designs to evaluate social interventions. It describes, as a case study, a process evaluation carried out as an integral part of a randomized controlled trial of peer-led sex education. The process evaluation was designed to answer important questions about the implementation of the intervention, the social context of the trial, and the experiences of trial participants. The article describes the methods used to collect process data, and some of the challenges involved. It concludes by arguing that process evaluation is necessarily complex, but essential to the task of understanding why and how interventions and outcomes may be related.

Although widely accepted in medicine and health services research, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are often viewed with hostility by social scientists, who cite a variety of reasons as to why this approach to evaluation cannot be used to research social interventions. This article discusses the three central themes in these debates, which are those of science, ethics, and feasibility. The article uses three recent U.K. trials of social interventions (day care for preschool children, social support for disadvantaged families, and peer-led sex education for young people) to consider issues relating to the use of random allocation for social intervention evaluation and to suggest some practical strategies for the successful implementation of "social" RCTs. The article argues that the criteria of science, ethics, and feasibility can and should apply to social intervention trials in just the same way as they do to clinical trials.

Although widely accepted in medicine & health vices research, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are often viewed with hostility by social scientists, who cite a variety of reasons as to why this approach to evaluation cannot be used to research social interventions. This article discusses the three central themes in these debates, which are those of science, ethics, & feasibility. The article uses three recent U.K. trials of social interventions (day care for preschool children, social support for disadvantaged families, & peer-led sex education for young people) to consider issues relating to the use of random allocation for social intervention evaluation & to suggest some practical strategies for the successful implementation of "social" RCTs. The article argues that the criteria of science, ethics, & feasibility can & should apply to social intervention trials in just the same way as they do to clinical trials. [Copyright 2003 Sage Publications, Inc.]