Question: Starting in the 1970s, medical technology allowed babies with very low birth weight (VLBW, less than 1500 grams, or about 3.3 pounds) to survive without major handicaps. It was noticed that these children nonetheless had difficulties in school and as adults. A long study has followed 242 randomly selected VLBW babies to age 20 years, along with a control group of 233 randomly selected babies from the same population who had normal birth weight.
(a) Is this an experiment or an observational study? Why?
(b) At age 20, 179 of the VLBW group and 193 of the control group had graduated from high school. Is the graduation rate among the VLBW group significantly lower than for the normal-birth-weight controls? Give appropriate statistical evidence to justify your answer.