Just as with the other studies, those who performed the study in 2014 had two groups of young students, those who were allowed to study art and those who were not, selected through a lottery. The study contained "11,000 students from 123 schools in Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, about half of whom were assigned to visit Crystal Bridged of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., with the other half serving as a control group" . Education Week also conducted a live theater study in which they "conducted a lottery to offer free tickets to approximately half of the 700 Arkansas students who applied to see 'Hamlet' or 'A Christmas Carol' in a professional theater in Fayetteville." According to the article, those who conducted the study were careful in their approach to creating groups that were identical in background and interests, so that there were few differences between the two groups. Not focusing on whether or not the arts group had better test scores, the study instead simply examined overall changes in students' knowledge, increased desire to participate in the arts, and the values ​​students learned. The greatest value they believed they had instilled in students was critical thinking, which the study found they taught