Compared to What? Variation in the Impacts of Early Childhood Education by Alternative Care-Type Settings

63 Pages Posted: 7 Dec 2014 Last revised: 12 Jan 2016

See all articles by Avi Feller

Avi Feller

University of California, Berkeley - The Richard & Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy

Todd Grindal

Abt Associates, Inc.

Luke Miratrix

Harvard University - Department of Statistics

Lindsay C. Page

University of Pittsburgh School of Education

Date Written: January 11, 2016

Abstract

Early childhood education research often compares a group of children who receive the intervention of interest to a group of children who receive care in a range of different care settings. In this paper, we estimate differential impacts of an early childhood intervention by alternative care setting, using data from the Head Start Impact Study, a large-scale randomized evaluation. To do so, we utilize a Bayesian principal stratification framework to estimate separate impacts for two types of Compliers: those children who would otherwise be in other center-based care when assigned to control and those who would otherwise be in home-based care. We find strong, positive short-term effects of Head Start on receptive vocabulary for those Compliers who would otherwise be in home-based care. By contrast, we find no meaningful impact of Head Start on vocabulary for those Compliers who would otherwise be in other center-based care. Our findings suggest that alternative care type is a potentially important source of variation in early childhood education interventions.

Keywords: Causal Inference, Early Childhood Education, Head Start, Treatment Effect Variation

Suggested Citation

Feller, Avi and Grindal, Todd and Miratrix, Luke and Page, Lindsay C., Compared to What? Variation in the Impacts of Early Childhood Education by Alternative Care-Type Settings (January 11, 2016). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2534811 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2534811

Avi Feller (Contact Author)

University of California, Berkeley - The Richard & Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy ( email )

2607 Hearst Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94720-7320
United States

HOME PAGE: http://gspp.berkeley.edu/avifeller

Todd Grindal

Abt Associates, Inc. ( email )

55 Wheeler Street
Cambridge, MA 02138-1168
United States

Luke Miratrix

Harvard University - Department of Statistics ( email )

Science Center 7th floor
One Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138-2901
United States

Lindsay C. Page

University of Pittsburgh School of Education ( email )

135 N Bellefield Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
United States
412-648-7166 (Phone)

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