Adjusting content to individual student needs: Further evidence from an in-service teacher training program

Adapting instruction to the specific needs of each student is a promising strategy to improve overall academic achievement. In this article, I study the impact of an intensive in-service teacher training program on reading skills offered to kindergarten teachers in France. The program modifies the lesson content and encourages teachers to adapt instruction to student needs by dividing the class according to initial achievement. While assessing impact is usually difficult due to the presence of ability bias and teacher selection, I show that in this context, a value-added model that controls for school and teacher characteristics constitutes a legitimate strategy to estimate the treatment effect. Results show that all students benefiting from the program progressed in reading skills at the end of the year. Besides, weaker students progressed faster on less-advanced competences (such as letter recognition), while stronger students improved their reading skills. This suggests that teachers adjusted content to students' needs. Finally, a cost-effectiveness analysis reveals that the program is approximately three times more cost-effective than reducing class size in France

Parent's Participation, Involvement and Impact on Student Achievment: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in South Africa

This article investigates the role of parents by looking at the effect of a parental involvement program implemented in poor primary school in South Africa. Based on a random variation of the program assignment and on a partial population design, it allows to rigorously identify impacts on parental involvement, on the relationship between parents and teachers and on student outcomes. We find mixed results suggesting that parents who volunteer to attend the meetings changed their behavior toward more involvement at home and at school. Such behavioral change appears stronger for a subgroup of parents whose children is enrolled in the facilitating teacher's class, suggesting positive interactions between parents and teachers. Yet, no cognitive or non cognitive impact on students can be detected. We interpret these disappointing results as evidence that in a developing country context, parents face constraints that makes such program unable to have significant effects on student performance

Preschool and Parental Response in a Second Best World: Evidence from a School Construction Experiment

Interventions targeting early childhood development hold promise for increasing human capital and reducing the intergenerational transmission of poverty. This paper presents results from a randomized evaluation of a preschool construction program in Cambodia, and suggests caution. The overall impact of the program on early childhood outcomes was small and statistically insignificant. For the cohort with highest program exposure, the impact on cognitive indicators was negative; with the largest negative effects among children of poorer and less educated parents. The results are consistent with frequent underage enrollment in primary school in the absence of preschools, stricter enforcement of the minimum age for primary school entry after the intervention, substitution between primary and preschool following intervention, and difference in demand responses to the new preschools between more and less educated parents. The results show that contextual and program specifics, and behavioral responses, can potentially lead to perverse effects of programs

How to Improve Learning to Read at School? The Impact of Teachers’ Practices in Pre-School

International audienceAdjusting teaching content to the progress of individual students, preparing to teach reading early, and increasing the amount of phonological awareness content are all education strategies that have shown encouraging results in literacy and reducing cognitive and socio-economic inequalities. The project LECTURE (Reading) proposed by the association called “Agir pour l’Ecole” aims to assist teachers to change their pedagogical practices, to adapt them as best they can to the progress of their pupils in reading. The impact of this teacher-training programme, designed for the upper year of pre-school, demonstrates significant improvements among the participating pupils, and a reduction in the inequalities, for a much better cost-benefit ratio than other education policies (for example, reduction of class sizes). This study underscores the importance of teachers’ pedagogies on the progress of pupils and indicates that intensive and structured training can effectively modify their practices

Comment améliorer l’apprentissage de la lecture à l’école? L’impact des pratiques des enseignants à l’école maternelle

International audienceAjuster le contenu de l’enseignement aux progrès de chaque élève, préparer l’apprentissage de la lecture tôt, augmenter le volume d’enseignement phonologique sont des stratégies éducatives qui ont montré des résultats très encourageants sur l’apprentissage de la lecture et la réduction des inégalités cognitives et socio-économiques. Le projet LECTURE proposé par l’association « Agir pour l’Ecole » vise à accompagner les enseignants et à faire évoluer leurs pratiques pédagogiques vers une meilleure adaptation à la progression de leurs élèves en lecture. L’évaluation de ce dispositif de formation des enseignants en grande section de maternelle montre des résultats encourageants : les élèves bénéficiaires du projet progressent beaucoup et les inégalités de réussite se voient réduites, pour un rapport coût-bénéfice bien inférieur à celui d’autres politiques éducatives (par exemple réduction de la taille des classes). Cette étude souligne l’importance de la pédagogie des enseignants sur les progressions des élèves et indique qu’une formation intensive et structurée est en mesure de modifier efficacement leurs pratiques

Estimating Preschool Impacts when Counterfactual Enrollment Varies: Bounds, Conditional LATE and Machine Learning

We study the impact of preschools and the issue of close substitutes in a Cambodian context where newly built formalized preschools are competing with existing alternative early childcare arrangements. In addition to estimating the reduced-form impact of a vast preschool construction program using a random assignment, we implement several empirical techniques to isolate the impact on children who would have stayed at home if they had not been enrolled in the newly built preschools. We argue that this parameter is both critical for the preschool literature and, because it does not depend on the quality of alternative preschool, is often the only parameter that can be comparable across studies and contexts. Our results show that after one year of experiment, the average intention-to-treat impact on cognitive and socioemotional development measures is significant but small in magnitude (0.05 SD). Our analysis, however, suggests that the impact on the children who would have stayed at home will likely be high and significant, and can be bounded, under a set of reasonable assumptions, between 0.13 SD and 0.45 SD. Under heavier assumptions, we have evidence that the impact on the children who would have stayed at home is around 0.2 SD, closer to our low bound. In a context where infrastructures are improving in low-income countries, our analysis suggests that accounting for close substitutes is crucial to produce more external valid statements on programs’ performance and make appropriate policy recommendations

Estimating Preschool Impacts when Counterfactual Enrollment Varies: Bounds, Conditional LATE and Machine Learning

We study the impact of preschools and the issue of close substitutes in a Cambodian context where newly built formalized preschools are competing with existing alternative early childcare arrangements. In addition to estimating the reduced-form impact of a vast preschool construction program using a random assignment, we implement several empirical techniques to isolate the impact on children who would have stayed at home if they had not been enrolled in the newly built preschools. We argue that this parameter is both critical for the preschool literature and, because it does not depend on the quality of alternative preschool, is often the only parameter that can be comparable across studies and contexts. Our results show that after one year of experiment, the average intention-to-treat impact on cognitive and socioemotional development measures is significant but small in magnitude (0.05 SD). Our analysis, however, suggests that the impact on the children who would have stayed at home will likely be high and significant, and can be bounded, under a set of reasonable assumptions, between 0.13 SD and 0.45 SD. Under heavier assumptions, we have evidence that the impact on the children who would have stayed at home is around 0.2 SD, closer to our low bound. In a context where infrastructures are improving in low-income countries, our analysis suggests that accounting for close substitutes is crucial to produce more external valid statements on programs’ performance and make appropriate policy recommendations