The impact of technology: value-added classroom practice: final report

This report extends Becta’s enquiries into the ways in which digital technologies are supporting learning. It looks in detail at the learning practices mediated by ICT in nine secondary schools in which ICT for learning is well embedded. The project proposes a broader perspective on the notion of ‘impact’ that is rather different from a number of previous studies investigating impact. Previous studies have been limited in that they have either focused on a single innovation or have reported on institutional level factors. However, in both cases this pays insufficient attention to the contexts of learning. In this project, the focus has been on the learning practices of the classroom and the contexts of ICT-supported learning. The study reports an analysis of 85 lesson logs, in which teachers recorded their use of space, digital technology and student outcomes in relation to student engagement and learning. The teachers who filled in the logs, as well as their schools’ senior managers, were interviewed as part of a ‘deep audit’ of ICT provision conducted over two days. One-hour follow-up interviews with the teachers were carried out after the teachers’ log activity. The aim of this was to obtain a broader contextualisation of their teaching

A Contribution to the Empirics of Development and Globalization

There are arguably few topics in current global economic policy as intensely debated as the impact of different facets of globalization on human development. Given that the concept of globalization reflects a multitude of economic and societal transformations, the scope of these discussions needs to be equally nuanced. This dissertation sheds light on some of the channels through which less researched facets of globalization affect human lives. Specifically, the first essay scrutinizes the role of informational globalization, characterized by the exchange of information. It focuses on the spread of modern information and telecommunication technologies, such as the internet, and how this development has the potential to shape concerns about relative status and people’s perception of happiness. The second essay deals with the implications of environmental globalization - more precisely, with climate change as its most perceptible phenomenon and the consequential increased prevalence of extreme weather events in many parts of the world. Focusing on the impact of drought conditions on health outcomes in the agrarian economy of Vietnam, the results reveal one component of the costs of environmental globalization for a population vulnerable to poverty. Emanating from the long-debated question whether development aid is effective in increasing economic growth, the third essay is concerned with the role of the World Bank as one key player of political globalization in alleviating poverty and fostering development and the role of cross-border official capital flows in the form of development aid. It also has a methodological focus through bringing the aid-effectiveness literature to the subnational level. Being grounded on economic theory, a unifying feature of all essays in this dissertation is an evidence-based approach to economic problems. Their research method is the use of empirical data in order to draw quantitative conclusions on the effects of different aspects of globalization on human development

Corruption Perceptions vs. Corruption Reality

This paper examines the accuracy of beliefs about corruption, using data from Indonesian villages. Specifically, I compare villagers%u2019 stated beliefs about the likelihood of corruption in a road-building project in their village with a more objective measure of %u2018missing expenditures%u2019 in the project, which I construct by comparing the projects%u2019 official expenditure reports with an independent estimate of the prices and quantities of inputs used in construction. I find that villagers%u2019 beliefs do contain information about corruption in the road project, and that villagers are sophisticated enough to distinguish between corruption in the road project and other types of corruption in the village. The magnitude of their information, however, is small, in part because officials hide corruption where it is hardest for villagers to detect. This may limit the effectiveness of grass-roots monitoring of local officials. I also find evidence of systematic biases in corruption beliefs, particularly when examining the relationship between corruption and variables correlated with trust. For example, ethnically heterogeneous villages have higher perceived corruption levels but lower actual levels of missing expenditures. The findings illustrate the limitations of relying solely on corruption perceptions, whether in designing anti-corruption policies or in conducting empirical research on corruption.

ending civil conflict through rebel demobilization

We examine the role of FM radio in mitigating violent conflict. We collect original data on radio broadcasts encouraging defections during the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency. This constitutes the first quantitative evaluation of an active counterinsurgency policy that encourages defections through radio messages. Exploiting random topography-driven variation in radio coverage along with panel variation at the grid-cell level, we identify the causal effect of messaging on violence. Broadcasting defection messages increases defections and reduces fatalities, violence against civilians, and clashes with security forces. Income shocks have opposing effects on both the conflict and the effectiveness of messaging.publishersversionpublishe

A cooperative task-based learning approach to motivating low achieving readers of English in a Taiwanese University

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Psychosocial and environmental determinants of physical activity in elementary school children : implications for interventions to reduce childhood obesity.

Introduction: Childhood obesity has become a national public health crisis in America. Physical activity has been shown to be one key for controlling childhood obesity, but little is known about the mediators and moderators in physical activity promotion models. In particular, the immediate time afterschool provides an important opportunity for children to be active, only 20% of their afterschool time is used for physical activity. Purpose: The purposes of this study were to explore the psychosocial and environmental determinants of physical activity, and to examine the influence of wearing pedometers on the hypothesized determinants (physical activity self-efficacy, physical activity enjoyment, perceived parental influence, and perceived environment) of physical activity, among elementary school children attending afterschool programs, Methods: A cross-sectional correlational design was used to explore the determinants of physical activity in 133 children enrolled in afterschool programs. In addition, a pretest-posttest study was conducted to examine the influence of wearing pedometers on the hypothesized determinants of physical activity among a subsample of 50 randomly selected children. Children\u27s physical activity levels were assessed by a seven-day recall scale, and seven consecutive days’ pedometer steps. Results: Approximately 49% of the children were overweight or obese, but only 13% of the children met national physical activity recommendations. Overweight or obese children took fewer pedometer steps than non-overweight children, and pedometer steps were negatively related to children\u27s BMI. Wearing pedometers did not have a significant influence on the hypothesized determinants of physical activity. No evidence of the reactivity of wearing pedometers was found. Perceived parental influence partially mediated the relationships of physical activity self-efficacy and physical activity enjoyment with physical activity. For self-reported physical activity levels, physical activity enjoyment had the strongest effect on physical activity followed by physical activity self-efficacy. Perceived parental influence had the strongest effect on physical activity measured by pedometers. Conclusions: Pedometers are a reliable measurement instrument to assess elementary school children\u27s physical activity. Perceived parental influence has the primary effect on children\u27s self-reported physical activity levels and number of pedometer steps. Future physical activity interventions should target parental influence to improve children\u27s physical activity levels and control childhood obesity

Essays in Applied Microeconomics and Development

In my thesis I address questions in applied microeconomics within two topic areas: the first is the effect of news media on perceptions and political outcomes; the second is labour allocation and internal migration decision making in developing country settings. In the second chapter I exploit a unique natural experiment occurred in the Italian television market - the staggered timing of the digital TV signal introduction - to study the influence of information provided by partisan news media on the perceptions individuals hold, focusing on perceptions about crime. Combining unique data on each channel’s crime news coverage and prime-time viewing shares, I find that reduced exposure to crime-related news decreased concerns about crime and did so mainly for older individuals who, on average, watch more television and use alternative sources of information less frequently. I also provide evidence of potential effects on voting. In the third chapter I study the relation between household migration decisions and the distribution of risk attitudes within a household in a rural-developing country setting. I do so by developing and testing - with data from internal migrants and their family members left behind in rural China - a household model of migration decision with heterogeneous risk preferences. Findings suggest that risk attitudes of household members other than the migrant affect not only individual migrations but also whether a household sends a migrant at all. In the fourth chapter I analyse if and in what measure individuals and households in rural China reallocate labour across sectors in response to agricultural productivity shocks. I match panel data of individual and household labour supply histories with detailed weather information, which I use to proxy agricultural productivity. Results suggest that farming is reduced and urban sector employment increased in response to negative rainfall shocks, both along the intensive and the participation margin; that responses are heterogeneous across age; and that land tenure insecurity might partially prevent households from freely reallocating labour away from farming