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Matching Strategies for Causal Inference with Observational Data in Education

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Complementary Research Methods for Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

Abstract

The challenge of making causal inferences from observational data consists not only in mastering the statistical matching techniques but also in meeting the causal assumptions. In this chapter, we have explained what the causal estimands are and how they can be identified and then estimated via propensity scoreĀ (PS)-matching, PS-stratification, or PS-weighting in single-level or multilevel settings. We have also highlighted that the selection of baseline covariates and their reliable measurement is much more important than the choice of a specific matching technique. Sensitivity analyses can be very helpful in assessing the effect of unobserved confounding.

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Kim, Y., Lubanski, S.A., Steiner, P.M. (2018). Matching Strategies for Causal Inference with Observational Data in Education. In: Lochmiller, C. (eds) Complementary Research Methods for Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93539-3_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93539-3_9

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