Essay

Evaluating a Music Program's Impact

A city launches a voluntary, advanced after-school music program for high school students. A year later, a study finds that students who participated in the program have, on average, higher academic grades than students who did not. The city manager concludes the program is directly responsible for the academic improvement.

Critique this conclusion. In your answer, you should:

  1. Identify a potential characteristic of students who self-select into an advanced music program that might also be related to their academic performance.
  2. Explain how this characteristic makes it difficult to determine if the music program itself is the true cause of the higher grades.
  3. Suggest a more reliable method for studying the program's effect that would account for this issue.

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Updated 2025-07-17

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Introduction to Microeconomics Course

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