Recommendations for Achieving High Response Rates in School-Based Program Evaluations with Adolescents

Program evaluation studies require sufficiently large samples of participants to detect impacts. However, studies tend to lose potential participants in the recruitment and consent phases, as well as during follow-up data collection. Evaluators of school-based programs also face challenges such as managing compressed timelines, gathering parental consent (particularly if the school district requires that families have the opportunity to opt out of programs), and working in school systems with high rates of student turnover.

This research brief presents recommendations for achieving high response rates in evaluations of school-based programs for adolescents, learned through the recent evaluation of Re:MIX, a teen pregnancy prevention program implemented in charter schools with primarily Latinx students in grades 8 through 10.