Refer to the information provided in Scenario 22.3 below to answer the question(s) that follow.
SCENARIO 22.3: Consider a local high school that has 300 sophomores considered to be at-risk students. A privately-sponsored after-school sports program has been established to try to help at-risk students succeed in finishing high school. The local government wants to know if this program reduces the students' probability of dropping out of high school before the end of their junior year, and decides to randomly sample 150 of the 300 at-risk sophomores and invite them to attend the after-school program at no cost. 100 students accept the invitation, and by the end of their junior year, the drop-out percentage of the 100 students who attended the program was lower than the drop-out percentage of the 200 students who did not attend the program.
-Refer to Scenario 22.3. The efficacy of this program can be best measured by comparing
A) the drop-out percentage of the 100 students who attended the program to the drop-out percentage of the 200 students who did not attend the program.
B) the drop-out percentage of the 100 students who attended the program to the drop-out percentage of the 50 students who were offered the program but chose not to attend.
C) the drop-out percentage of the 150 students who were offered the program to the drop-out percentage of the 150 students who were not offered the program.
D) the drop-out percentage of the 50 students were offered the program but chose not to attend to the drop-out percentage of the 150 students who were not offered the program.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The efficacy of the program is best measured by comparing the outcomes of all students who were offered the program (regardless of whether they attended) to those who were not offered the program. This approach, as described in option C, accounts for the potential self-selection bias of students who choose to attend the program and provides a more accurate measure of the program's impact on the entire group of at-risk students.

Refer to the Information Provided in Scenario 22