Student Mobility: Exploring the Impacts of Frequent Moves on Achievement by National Research Council & Institute of Medicine of the National Academies

Author:National Research Council & Institute of Medicine of the National Academies
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Behavioral and Social Sciences : Children, Youth and Families. Health and Medicine : Children's Health
Publisher: NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Published: 2010-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

Ludwig acknowledged the point, adding that because so many families who would be eligible for housing assistance are not receiving it, there are multiple opportunities for comparing outcomes among different groups. Ludwig stressed that answering questions about causation is most important at the point when policy makers are contemplating a specific intervention. The key concern with nonexperimental methods, he suggested, is that they can give a misleading reading on the size or even the existence of key causal relationships. More important, he said, “We currently do not have very good methods for determining how well our nonexperimental approaches are working. If we cannot be sure that our nonexperimental estimates are close to the truth we must be appropriately cautious in basing policy decisions on such results, and continue to push harder to develop a body of evidence that gives us greater confidence that we understand what the consequences of different policy decisions will be.”

Reflecting on the state of mobility research in light of the methodological issues that had been raised, Stephen Raudenbush offered several observations. First, he noted that the field has benefited recently from a body of carefully done empirical studies that represent an important step forward. These studies have established a strong basis for conclusions about which children are exposed to the most mobility and which children seem to be at greatest risk for harm from mobility. But the causal questions are complex, and the interpretations of what these data mean are less straightforward.

Raudenbush highlighted the value of Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin’s approach and Ludwig’s challenge. Their model bypassed the lack of complete data to show the short-term disruptive effects of a move in a way that takes into account the effects of the new school and neighborhood of a move. It also has a useful way to reframe the causal question by looking for the impact of attending a school that is characterized by high levels of mobility. This is valuable, Raudenbush observed, because it demonstrates the need for a policy intervention based on the results of this causal question. For his part, Ludwig challenged researchers and policy makers not to take shortcuts on causal questions. Strong design considerations—either randomized experiments, regression discontinuity studies in which the selection process is fully known, or natural experiments in which there is a clear instrumental variable—are needed to support causal interpretations.

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