Does computer-based individualized instruction boost math learning?

 Yes. In public schools in Rajasthan, India, students who scored in the bottom 25% of their class improved by 22% of a standard deviation in math test scores (top chart). However, the average student in grades 6-8 who had access to individualized instruction did not outperform those who did not over nine months. Our results suggest that computer-based individualized instruction is most beneficial for low performers.

What is computer-based individualized instruction?

 We provided all students with a computer-adaptive math learning software called “Mindspark.” When students first log in, they take a diagnostic test, which identifies what they know and can do, and the areas in which they can improve. Then, the software presents them with exercises appropriate for their preparation level based on the diagnostic test. The difficulty and topic covered by subsequent exercises dynamically adjust to each student’s progress.

Beth Schueler, Daniel Rodriguez-Segura

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What was this study about?

Covid-19 school closures have generated significant interest in tutoring to make up for lost learning time. Tutoring is backed by rigorous research, but it is unclear whether it can be delivered effectively remotely. We study the effect of teacher-student phone calls in Kenya when schools were closed. Schools (j=105) were randomly assigned for 3^rd, 5^th and 6^th graders (n=8,319) to receive one of two versions of a 7-week weekly math intervention—5-minute accountability checks or 15-minute mini-tutoring sessions—or to the control group.

Davide Azzolini, Sonia Marzadro, Enrico Rettore, Katja Engelhardt, Benjamin Hertz, Patricia Wastiau

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Does providing teachers with personalized support help them complete online training courses?

Yes, but not for all and not everywhere. The TeachUP policy experimentation found large effects of personalized support on course completion in nine European Union Member States among professional (i.e., in-service) teachers (+10.6 percentage points), but not among student teachers. Moreover, no effects are found in Turkey. More studies are needed to investigate the contextual and learner characteristics that drive the heterogeneous effects.

Ann-Katrin van den Ham and Aiso Heinze

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Is an early mathematics support program based on formative assessment effective?

Yes, it is, according to a study conducted with 135 elementary school classes from 40 schools in Germany. The study shows that students at-risk for mathematical difficulties benefited from the two-year "Mathe macht stark (MMS) - Grundschule" (Maths makes you strong - primary school) implementation in Grades 1 and 2. This effect is maintained one year after the intervention ends and without providing Grade 3 formative assessment material. Moreover, students not at-risk for mathematical difficulties also benefited from the program, despite not being the target of the program. Hence, the formative assessment elements the teachers used in the mathematics classrooms for at-risk students were also beneficial for the other students. Interestingly, in an enhanced version of the program, including two extra teacher working hours per week, did not add value for at-risk students in the follow-up test at the end of Grade 3.

Summary by: Hang (Heather) Do

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What was this study about?

Chronic absenteeism (missing more than 10% of school days or more in one year) negatively impacts children’s school achievement and development. Yet, little is known about how absenteeism influences the effectiveness of interventions. In this study, the authors examined whether absenteeism affected the impacts of an intensive two-year professional development (PD) intervention aiming to improve the quality of Chilean public preschool and kindergarten and enhance the language and literacy outcomes of participating children (UBC (Un Buen Comienzo/A Good Start)).

José de Amesti & Susana Claro

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Apprenticeship increase employment opportunities, but what about academic outcomes?  

Apprenticeship-based high schools increase employment outcomes compared to school-based-only vocational education: countries that implement apprenticeship have eased the school-to-work transition and reduced youth unemployment. Despite these promising benefits of apprenticeship, there is almost no evidence of its impact on students’ educational outcomes. In fact, some worry that spending less time at school could motivate students to leave the academic path to join the workplace instead, causing apprentices to achieve lower educational attainment.

Martin Brunner, Uli Keller, Marina Wenger, Antoine Fischbach & Oliver Lüdtke

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Does an educational intervention work?

When planning an evaluation, researchers should ensure that it has enough statistical power to detect the expected intervention effect. The minimally detectable effect size, or MDES, is the smallest true effect size a study is well positioned to detect. If the MDES is too large, researchers may erroneously conclude that their intervention does not work even when it does. If the MDES is too small, that is not a problem per se, but it may mean increased cost to conduct the study.  The sample size, along with several other factors, known as design parameters, go into calculating the MDES. Researchers must estimate these design parameters. This paper provides an empirical bases for estimating design parameters in 81 countries across various outcomes.

Kristin Rogde, Monica Melby-Lervåg, & Arne Lervåg

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There are increasing numbers of children whose first language differs from the predominant language of instruction in their school. Entering school where the language of instruction is a student’s second language is associated with undesirable social, educational, and economic outcomes. This study investigates the efficacy of an intervention aimed at improving second-language skills of kindergarteners.

How did we test the intervention?

Chris van Klaveren, Karen Kooiman, Ilja Cornelisz & Martijn Meeter

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Secondary school students tend to be overly optimistic about how well they will perform in college. This overconfidence leads to suboptimal decision making. But what if secondary school students were told their likelihood of succeeding in the college program they applied to prior to their decision to enroll?  Would this influence their decision to enroll?

This study presents the results of a field experiment in which a random half of 313 secondary-school students applying to higher education received personalized predictions on study success (the other half did not receive such predictions). A comparison of the enrolment rates of the two groups of students helps us understand the effect of receiving these personalized predictions. We find that:

Sharon Wolf, J. Lawrence Aber, Jere Behrman & Edward Tsinigo

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Preschool teacher training program improves classroom quality and child outcomes in Ghana

Children around the world are attending preschool more than ever before. But many preschools are poor quality and children are not learning. Ghana, a lower-middle income country in West Africa, has been at the forefront of expanding access to preschool and adopting a progressive- child-centered curriculum.

Yet, preschool quality remains poor and most teachers have not been trained in the national curriculum.