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Compared to what?: Estimating causal effects for latent subgroups to understand variation in the impacts of Head Start by alternate child care setting

Description:
In this paper, we extend the main HSIS findings to examine whether the offer of Head Start was differentially beneficial for students grouped by the care setting they would have received absent the offer of Head Start. In order to do so, we develop a novel methodological approach that connects principal stratification as an analytic framework with a hierarchical random effects model and Bayesian estimation strategies to stratify children into latent subgroups defined by the pair of child care settings each child would experience under the randomized offer of Head Start and under no such offer. That is, we assign students to a subgroup defined not only by the care type we observe them to have taken up but also by the care type they would have taken up under the counterfactual experimental condition. By examining treatment-control differences in outcomes only for those children who, for example, would enroll in Head Start if offered the opportunity, but who otherwise would be cared for by a parent, we are able to able to estimate the causal impact of Head Start across the alternate care-type settings. Our analyses will focus on outcomes such as such as performance on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the Woodcock-Johnson III assessments gathered for several years after the initial HSIS randomization. (author abstract)
Resource Type:
Reports & Papers
Country:
United States

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