Substance use and levels of cohesion and adaptability were assessed in three consecutive high school freshman classes in a small midwestern city. As predicted, adolescents who perceived their families to be extreme on cohesion and adaptability (measured by FACES II) were more likely than adolescents from balanced and midrange families to use marijuana, alcohol, tobacco, depressants, and psychedelics. Inconsistent results were found for cocaine use. Adolescents from extreme families were especially vulnerable to substance use when a family member was perceived as having a drinking problem.

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The national evaluation of an early elementary compensatory education program, Follow Through, is used as the context for discussion of design and analysis problems common to many evaluations. Although experiments have well-known advantages over quasi-experiments, the latter are likely to persist for the foreseeable future. It is argued that more careful planning could avoid many unnecessary weaknesses of past quasi-experiments, and that quasiexperiments can provide valuable information for evaluations. The strengths and weaknesses of several competing analysis strategies for quasi-experiments are considered. The conclusion is that no one strategy is satisfactory. A

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