Projecting Intervention Impacts in Developmental and Educational Studies

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

The proposed panel would include three papers that can significantly contribute to our understanding of the ways that intervention impacts unfold in the long-term in Developmental and Educational studies. These papers use cutting edge methods, including meta-analysis and within-study replications and comparisons, with each paper pushing the field forward in crucial ways. The first paper leverages data from a groundbreaking randomized experiment of unconditional cash transfers to examine whether correlational models linking increases in income to child and family outcomes properly forecast the experimental impacts produced by random assignment to income increases. These findings suggest that correlational methods may provide surprisingly poor projections for intervention effects. The second paper presents data from a new meta-analysis of educational RCTs with long-term follow-up to examine whether follow-up effect patterns differ between cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Like the first analysis, this paper also carries implications for longitudinal correlational work, as the authors found substantial fadeout across both behavioral and cognitive outcomes. This work will also evaluate whether short-run impacts on cognitive and behavioral skills can be used to project longer-term impacts when long-run effects are unknown. The final paper further addresses issues of fadeout in early childhood educational studies by examining whether preschool effects differentially persist or fade across various cognitive and behavioral measures of school readiness. This final analysis also makes use of within-study comparisons by examining data from multiple state-funded pre-k programs. The symposium will include a discussant who is an expert in quantitative methodology, education, and meta-science.

Sub Unit

• Methods, History, Theory

Chair

• Tyler Watts, Teachers College, Columbia University

Discussant

• Jessica Logan, Vanderbilt University

Individual Presentations

• A Within-Study Comparison of Experimental and Observational Estimates of Income Effects on Child Development and Maternal Well-Being - Presenting Author: Daniela Alvarez-Vargas, University of California - Irvine; Drew Bailey, University of California - Irvine; Greg J Duncan, University of California, Irvine

• Trajectories of Fadeout in Cognitive and Social-Emotional Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Control Trials with Follow-up Assessments - Presenting Author: Emma Rose Hart, Teachers College, Columbia University; Drew Bailey, University of California - Irvine; Tyler Watts, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Pre-kindergarten Intermediate Impacts - Results from Randomized Clinical Trials and Cohort Studies - Presenting Author: Ana Whitaker, University of Delaware; Margaret Burchinal, University of Virginia - Charlottesville; Drew Bailey, University of California - Irvine; Jade V Marcus Jenkins, University of California - Irvine; Tyler Watts, Teachers College, Columbia University; Greg J Duncan, University of California, Irvine