New Course in Good and Bad Controls Offers Insight into Student Success

A new course, "Crash Course in Good and Bad Controls," is providing students with the tools to better understand how to maximize their success. Developed by Carlos Cinelli, Andrew Forney, and Judea Pearl, this course offers an innovative approach to analyzing data related to student performance. The course focuses on a model called Model 16 which examines the relationships between class size, math4 scores, read4 scores, and student ability. By conditioning on read4 scores it opens up a path from class size to read4 scores then back to student ability and finally math4 scores. This path is considered a “bad control” as it can lead to skewed results when examining student performance. This course provides students with an understanding of how they can better analyze data related to their own academic performance as well as that of their peers. It also allows them to see what types of controls are best suited for various types of data analysis so that they can make more informed decisions about how best to use the data available. By offering insight into good and bad controls, this course has the potential to help students gain a better understanding of how their own academic performance is affected by various factors such as class size or other variables. With this knowledge in hand, students will be able to make more informed decisions about their academic pursuits and ultimately achieve greater success in school.