Posted: March 7th, 2017

Suppose you wish to determine the effect of attending a charter school relative to attending a traditional public school. You assume that learning is measured by SAT scores of high school seniors at both types of schools.

Suppose you wish to determine the effect of attending a charter school relative to attending a traditional public school. You assume that learning is measured by SAT scores of high school seniors at both types of schools.
a) Name one potential problem that could lead to biased results if you were to identify the effect of attending a charter school by comparing the scores of the two groups?
b) Suppose more students wanted to attend a charter school than the charter school could accept, and you wanted to identify the effect of attending charter school by comparing the outcomes of students who attended charter school to those of students who wanted to but could not. If you wanted to use a quasi experimental approach, would it be acceptable if the charter school were to accept students on the basis of student characteristics?
c) Would your answer to part b change if students were accepted instead on the basis of a lottery?