Can Broad Inferences Be Drawn from Lottery Analyses of School Choice Programs? An Exploration of Appropriate Sensitivity Analyses

Ron Zimmer, John Engberg

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

School choice programs continue to be controversial, spurring a number of researchers into evaluating them. When possible, researchers evaluate the effect of attending a school of choice using randomized designs to eliminate possible selection bias. Randomized designs are often thought of as the gold standard for research, but many circumstances can limit external validity of inferences from these designs in the context of school choice programs. In this article, we examine whether these limitations are applicable to previous evaluations of voucher, charter schools, magnet, and open-enrollment programs. We devise simple sensitivity analyses that researchers could conduct when analyzing lotteried programs to determine whether there are reasons to be cautious about the breadth of appropriate inferences.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)48-72
Number of pages25
JournalJournal of School Choice
Volume10
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2 2016

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Financial support for this research is provided by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES R305A070117 and R305D090016).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016, Published with license by Taylor & Francis.

Keywords

  • inferences
  • school choice

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Education

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