What is randomized control trial?

What is randomized control trial? #evaluation #monitoringandevaluation #monitoring #rct
what is randomized control trial?
What is randomized trail or what is RCT?
Randomized control trials or simply randomized trials are scientific experiment used to measure the effectiveness of interventions or treatments. RCTs are considered gold standard when it comes to determining causal relationship between the intervention and its impact. It is commonly used in the field of medicine, psychology, economics and policy evauation. As the name suggests it is random, it’s controlled and it’s a trail.
First RCT is random because participants are randomly assigned to one of two or more groups. The group that receives treatment or the intervention is the treatment group and other group without the treatment is the controlled group. Randomization helps ensure that the groups are comparable before the start of the intervention and any differences observed at the end of the intervention can be attributed to the treatment.
Randomization is important becaue we want to measure the impact of intervention on similar types of people. Take for example if we are measuring the impact of some medicine on particular illness, we cannot take ill and healthy people in our treatment and control group, and this simply does not make sense. It has to be similar kinds of people who are suffering from similar illness, only then we can measure the true effect of the medicine.
Second RCT is controlled because we make use of control groups to see the counterfactual. Control group acts as the Counterfactual as it shows us what would have happened to the treatment group if they were not treated. Just because we cannot keep a particular person in both treatment and control group at the same time, we have to make use of the control group to see the impact of intervention on the treatment group.
Third RCT are trials- it’s a test to see if the interventions really works. Take for example, does the use of bed nets reduce malaria cases? And the answer comes to be a total yes. As RCTs are test it helps us test the intervention on a smaller scale before spending a lot of money on some large interventions. It gives us valuable knowledge on the intervention, so we can expand, stop or replicate similar interventions.
Although RCTs gives us the best cause-and -effect relationship between the intervention and outcomes, it is not always feasible and applicable to carry out the test. In other cases where the interventions have already happened or where no treatment groups are available other methods of impact evaluation are employed.
Lastly, RCT is the finest measurement tool to measure the impact of intervention. More generally it is an attempt to learn more about the world, so as to make the world a better place.
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