TY - BOOK TI - Cost-Effectiveness Measurement in Development: Accounting for Local Costs and Noisy Impacts AU - Evans, David K. AU - Popova, Anna T2 - Policy Research Working Papers DA - 2014/09// PY - 2014 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) LA - en PB - The World Bank ST - Cost-Effectiveness Measurement in Development UR - http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/book/10.1596/1813-9450-7027 Y2 - 2022/04/01/09:39:59 ER - TY - BOOK TI - The permanent input hypothesis : the case of textbooks and (no) student learning in Sierra Leone AU - Sabarwal, Shwetlena AU - Evans, David K. AU - Marshak, Anastasia T2 - Policy research working paper : WPS DA - 2014/// PY - 2014 LA - eng PB - Washington, DC : World Bank, Education Global Practice Group & Africa Region, Office of the Chief Economist ST - The permanent input hypothesis ER - TY - RPRT TI - What Really Works to Improve Learning in Developing Countries? An Analysis of Divergent Findings in Systematic Reviews AU - Evans, David K AU - Popova, Anna T2 - Policy Research Working Paper AB - In the past two years alone, at least six systematic reviews or meta-analyses have examined the interventions that improve learning outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. However, these reviews have sometimes reached starkly different conclusions: reviews, in turn, recommend information technology, interventions that provide information about school quality, or even basic infrastructure (such as desks) to achieve the greatest improvements in student learning. This paper demonstrates that these divergent conclusions are largely driven by differences in the samples of research incorporated by each review. The top recommendations in a given review are often driven by the results of evaluations not included in other reviews. Of 227 studies with student learning results, the most inclusive review incorporates less than half of the total studies. Variance in classification also plays a role. Across the reviews, the three classes of programs that are recommended with some consistency (albeit under different names) are pedagogical interventions (including computer-assisted learning) that tailor teaching to student skills; repeated teacher training interventions, often linked to another pedagogical intervention; and improving accountability through contracts or performance incentives, at least in certain contexts. Future reviews will be most useful if they combine narrative review with meta-analysis, conduct more exhaustive searches, and maintain low aggregation of intervention categories. CY - Washington, D.C. DA - 2015/// PY - 2015 DP - Zotero SP - 43 LA - en PB - World Bank Group SN - 7203 UR - https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/21642/WPS7203.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y KW - *Topic:Curriculum and resources KW - _Source:Intuitive KW - _THEME: Curriculum and resources KW - _THEME: Education management KW - _THEME: Learning assessments KW - _THEME: Teacher Professional Development KW - ___working_potential_duplicate KW - _proposed-for: Scoping review KW - ❓ Multiple DOI ER - TY - JOUR TI - What Really Works to Improve Learning in Developing Countries? An Analysis of Divergent Findings in Systematic Reviews AU - Evans, David K. AU - Popova, Anna T2 - The World Bank Research Observer DA - 2016/08// PY - 2016 DO - 10.1093/wbro/lkw004 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) VL - 31 IS - 2 SP - 242 EP - 270 J2 - World Bank Res Obs LA - en SN - 0257-3032, 1564-6971 ST - What Really Works to Improve Learning in Developing Countries? UR - https://academic.oup.com/wbro/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/wbro/lkw004 Y2 - 2020/05/15/11:34:58 KW - C:Low- and middle-income countries KW - ___working_potential_duplicate ER - TY - JOUR TI - What Really Works to Improve Learning in Developing Countries?: An Analysis of Divergent Findings in Systematic Reviews AU - Evans, David K. AU - Popova, Anna T2 - World Bank Research Observer AB - Over the course of just two years, at least six reviews have examined interventions that seek to improve learning outcomes in developing countries. Although the reviews ostensibly have the same objective, they reach sometimes starkly different conclusions. The first objective of this paper is to identify why reviews diverge in their conclusions and how future reviews can be more effective. The second objective is to identify areas of overlap in the recommendations of existing reviews of what works to improve learning. This paper demonstrates that divergence in the recommendations of learning reviews is largely driven by differences in the samples of research incorporated in each review. Of 229 studies with student learning results, the most inclusive review incorporates less than half of the total studies. Across the reviews, two classes of programs are recommended with some consistency. Pedagogical interventions that tailor teaching to student learning levels—either teacher-led or facilitated by adaptive learning software—are effective at improving student test scores, as are individualized, repeated teacher training interventions often associated with a specific task or tool. Future reviews will be most useful if they combine narrative review with meta-analysis, conduct more exhaustive searches, and maintain low aggregation of intervention categories. DA - 2016/08// PY - 2016 DO - 10.1093/wbro/lkw004 DP - openknowledge.worldbank.org VL - 31 IS - 2 SP - 242 EP - 70 LA - en SN - 1564-6971 ST - What Really Works to Improve Learning in Developing Countries? UR - https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/29308 Y2 - 2022/06/06/22:32:07 KW - Education KW - Human Capital KW - Impact Evaluation KW - Student Learning ER - TY - BOOK TI - Training Teachers on the Job: What Works and How to Measure It AU - Popova, Anna AU - Evans, David K. AU - Arancibia, Violeta T2 - Policy Research Working Papers DA - 2016/09/26/ PY - 2016 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) LA - en PB - World Bank ST - Training Teachers on the Job UR - http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/book/10.1596/1813-9450-7834 Y2 - 2020/05/16/17:02:09 KW - C:Low- and middle-income countries ER - TY - RPRT TI - Teacher Professional Development around the World: The Gap between Evidence and Practice AU - Popova, Anna AU - Evans, David K. AU - Breeding, Mary E. AU - Arancibia, Violeta DA - 2018/08// PY - 2018 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) LA - EN PB - World Bank ST - Teacher Professional Development around the World UR - http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/book/10.1596/1813-9450-8572 Y2 - 2020/05/15/11:43:26 KW - C:Low- and middle-income countries ER - TY - RPRT TI - Equivalent Years of Schooling: A Metric to Communicate Learning Gains in Concrete Terms AU - Evans, David K AU - Yuan, Fei T2 - World Bank Policy Research AB - In the past decade, hundreds of impact evaluation studies have measured the learning outcomes of education interventions in developing countries. The impact magnitudes are often reported in terms of "standard deviations," making them difficult to communicate to policy makers beyond education specialists. This paper proposes two approaches to demonstrate the effectiveness of learning interventions, one in "equivalent years of schooling" and another in the net present value of potential increased lifetime earnings. The results show that in a sample of low- and middle-income countries, one standard deviation gain in literacy skill is associated with between 4.7 and 6.8 additional years of schooling, depending on the estimation method. In other words, over the course of a business-as-usual school year, students learn between 0.15 and 0.21 standard deviation of literacy ability. Using that metric to translate the impact of interventions, a median structured pedagogy intervention increases learning by the equivalent of between 0.6 and 0.9 year of business-as-usual schooling. The results further show that even modest gains in standard deviations of learning -- if sustained over time -- may have sizeable impacts on individual earnings and poverty reduction, and that conversion into a non-education metric should help policy makers and non-specialists better understand the potential benefits of increased learning. CY - Washington, DC DA - 2019/02// PY - 2019 DP - openknowledge.worldbank.org LA - English M3 - Working Paper PB - World Bank SN - 8752 ST - Equivalent Years of Schooling UR - https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/31315 Y2 - 2022/01/11/20:21:55 KW - Education KW - Impact Evaluation KW - Learning Outcomes KW - Lifetime Earnings KW - Net Present Value KW - Poverty Reduction KW - Years of Schooling KW - ___working_potential_duplicate ER - TY - JOUR TI - Equivalent Years of Schooling: A Metric to Communicate Learning Gains in Concrete Terms AU - Evans, David K. AU - Yuan, Fei AB - In the past decade, hundreds of impact evaluation studies have measured the learning outcomes of education interventions in developing countries. The impact magnitudes are often reported in terms of "standard deviations," making them difficult to communicate to policy makers beyond education specialists. This paper proposes two approaches to demonstrate the effectiveness of learning interventions, one in "equivalent years of schooling" and another in the net present value of potential increased lifetime earnings. The results show that in a sample of low- and middle-income countries, one standard deviation gain in literacy skill is associated with between 4.7 and 6.8 additional years of schooling, depending on the estimation method. In other words, over the course of a business-as-usual school year, students learn between 0.15 and 0.21 standard deviation of literacy ability. Using that metric to translate the impact of interventions, a median structured pedagogy intervention increases learning by the equivalent of between 0.6 and 0.9 year of business-as-usual schooling. The results further show that even modest gains in standard deviations of learning -- if sustained over time -- may have sizeable impacts on individual earnings and poverty reduction, and that conversion into a non-education metric should help policy makers and non-specialists better understand the potential benefits of increased learning. DA - 2019/02// PY - 2019 DO - 10.1596/1813-9450-8752 DP - openknowledge.worldbank.org ST - Equivalent Years of Schooling UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31315 Y2 - 2023/09/21/17:23:05 ER - TY - RPRT TI - How to Improve Education Outcomes Most Efficiently? A Comparison of 150 Interventions Using the New Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling Metric AU - Angrist, Noam AU - Evans, David K. AU - Filmer, Deon AU - Glennerster, Rachel AU - Rogers, F. Halsey AU - Sabarwal, Shwetlena T2 - Policy Research Working Papers AB - Many low- and middle-income countries lag far behind high-income countries in educational access and student learning. Limited resources mean that policymakers must make tough choices about which investments to make to improve education. Although hundreds of education interventions have been rigorously evaluated, making comparisons between the results is challenging. Some studies report changes in years of schooling; others report changes in learning. Standard deviations, the metric typically used to report learning gains, measure gains relative to a local distribution of test scores. This metric makes it hard to judge if the gain is worth the cost in absolute terms. This paper proposes using learning-adjusted years of schooling (LAYS)—which combines access and quality and compares gains to an absolute, cross-country standard—as a new metric for reporting gains from education interventions. The paper applies LAYS to compare the effectiveness (and cost-effectiveness, where cost is available) of interventions from 150 impact evaluations across 46 countries. The results show that some of the most cost-effective programs deliver the equivalent of three additional years of high-quality schooling (that is, schooling at quality comparable to the highest-performing education systems) for just $100 per child—compared with zero years for other classes of interventions. CY - Washington, DC DA - 2020/// PY - 2020 DP - Zotero SP - 48 LA - en M3 - Working Paper PB - The World Bank SN - 9450 ST - How to Improve Education Outcomes Most Efficiently? UR - http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/book/10.1596/1813-9450-9450 KW - Cost-Benefit Analysis KW - Education Outcomes KW - Government Policy KW - Impact Evaluation KW - Learning Loss KW - Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling KW - Public Expenditure KW - Years of Schooling KW - ___working_potential_duplicate KW - ⛔ No DOI found ER - TY - RPRT TI - Getting Education Right : State and Municipal Success in Reform for Universal Literacy in Brazil AU - Evans, David K. AU - Loureiro, Andre AB - Getting Education Right : State and Municipal Success in Reform for Universal Literacy in Brazil (English) DA - 2020/// PY - 2020 LA - en M3 - Text/HTML ST - Getting Education Right UR - https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/444581593599662264/Getting-Education-Right-State-and-Municipal-Success-in-Reform-for-Universal-Literacy-in-Brazil Y2 - 2022/05/31/22:25:52 ER - TY - RPRT TI - The State of Ceara in Brazil is a Role Model for Reducing Learning Poverty AU - Loureiro, Andre AU - Cruz, Louisee AU - Lautharte, Ildo AU - Evans, David K. AB - This report presents the case of the state of Ceara in Brazil that overcame adverse socioeconomic conditions to substantially improve education outcomes with efficient use of resources. Despite having the 5th lowest GDP per capita among the 26 Brazilian states, the 9-million-inhabitant state of Ceara has experienced the largest increase in the national education quality index in both primary and lower secondary education since 2005, with 10 municipalities of Ceara being among the top 20 national ranking, including Sobral which has the highest score. The state of Ceara pioneered the use of results-based financing as part of a comprehensive education reform program that among other elements included strong support to its municipalities to achieve universal literacy by the end of grade 2. The reforms allowed the state to considerably improve learning levels of students in primary and lower secondary education with a high level of efficiency in the use of resources. The main aspects of the reforms are presented and discussed. CY - Washington, DC DA - 2020/06// PY - 2020 DP - openknowledge.worldbank.org LA - English PB - World Bank UR - https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/34156 Y2 - 2022/06/11/15:40:27 KW - Education Quality KW - Education Reform KW - Learning Poverty KW - Results-Based Financing KW - Secondary Education ER - TY - JOUR TI - Practical Lessons for Phone-Based Assessments of Learning AU - Angrist, Noam AU - Bergman, Peter AU - Evans, David K. AU - Hares, Susannah AU - Jukes, Matthew C. H. AU - Letsomo, Thato T2 - BMJ Global Health AB - School closures affecting more than 1.5 billion children are designed to prevent the spread of current public health risks from the COVID-19 pandemic, but they simultaneously introduce education risks as well as new, longer run health risks, via lost education. While some studies measure student involvement in educational activities during the crisis through phone-based surveys, the literature on assessing learning by phone is almost nonexistent, despite the fact that learning loss has major implications for school dropout and rising inequality. In this article, we draw on our pilot testing of phone-based assessments in Botswana, along with the existing literature on oral testing of reading and mathematics, to propose a series of preliminary principles to guide researchers and service providers as they try phone-based learning assessments. We provide guidance to help teams (1) ensure that children are not put at risk, (2) test the reliability and validity of phone-based measures, (3) use simple instructions and practice items to ensure the assessment is focused on the target skill, not general language and test-taking skills, (4) adapt the items from oral assessments that will be most effective in phone-based assessments, (5) keep assessments brief while still gathering meaningful learning data, (6) learn from the speed and confidence of responses, (7) use effective strategies to encourage respondents to pick up the phone, and (8) build rapport with adult caregivers and youth respondents. DA - 2020/07// PY - 2020 DO - 10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003030 DP - Zotero VL - 5 IS - 7 SP - 16 J2 - BMJ Glob Health LA - en SN - 2059-7908 UR - https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/practical-lessons-phone-based-assessments-learning-revised-jul2020.pdf KW - ___working_potential_duplicate KW - health economics KW - health services research KW - public health KW - ⛔ No DOI found ER - TY - RPRT TI - Practical Lessons for Phone-Based Assessments of Learning AU - Angrist, Noam AU - Bergman, Peter AU - Evans, David K. AU - Hares, Susannah AU - Jukes, Matthew C. H. AU - Letsomo, Thato CY - Washington D.C. DA - 2020/07// PY - 2020 SP - 16 LA - en PB - Center for Global Development ER - TY - JOUR TI - How to Improve Education Outcomes Most Efficiently? A Comparison of 150 Interventions using the New Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling Metric AU - Angrist, Noam AU - Evans, David K. AU - Filmer, Deon AU - Glennerster, Rachel AU - Rogers, F. Halsey AU - Sabarwal, Shwetlena T2 - World Bank T3 - Policy Research Working Papers DA - 2020/10/21/ PY - 2020 DO - 10.1596/1813-9450-9450 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) LA - en ST - How to Improve Education Outcomes Most Efficiently? UR - http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/book/10.1596/1813-9450-9450 Y2 - 2022/04/07/17:33:22 ER - TY - BOOK TI - How to Improve Education Outcomes Most Efficiently? A Comparison of 150 Interventions using the New Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling Metric AU - Angrist, Noam AU - Evans, David K. AU - Filmer, Deon AU - Glennerster, Rachel AU - Rogers, F. Halsey AU - Sabarwal, Shwetlena T2 - Policy Research Working Papers DA - 2020/10/21/ PY - 2020 DP - elibrary.worldbank.org (Atypon) SP - 48 PB - The World Bank ST - How to Improve Education Outcomes Most Efficiently? UR - https://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/abs/10.1596/1813-9450-9450 Y2 - 2023/09/21/17:23:22 KW - COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS KW - EDUCATION OUTCOMES KW - GOVERNMENT POLICY KW - IMPACT EVALUATION KW - LEARNING LOSS KW - PUBLIC EXPENDITURE KW - SCHOOLING KW - YEARS OF SCHOOLING ER - TY - JOUR TI - How to Improve Education Outcomes Most Efficiently? A Comparison of 150 Interventions using the New Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling Metric AU - Angrist, Noam AU - Evans, David K. AU - Filmer, Deon AU - Glennerster, Rachel AU - Rogers, F. Halsey AU - Sabarwal, Shwetlena T2 - World Bank T3 - Policy Research Working Papers DA - 2020/10/21/ PY - 2020 DO - 10.1596/1813-9450-9450 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) LA - en ST - How to Improve Education Outcomes Most Efficiently? UR - http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/book/10.1596/1813-9450-9450 Y2 - 2022/04/07/17:33:22 ER - TY - RPRT TI - Teaching and Testing by Phone in a Pandemic. AU - Crawfurd, Lee AU - Evans, David K. AU - Hares, Susannah AU - Sandefur, Justin CY - Washington, DC DA - 2021/// PY - 2021 M3 - Working Paper PB - Centre for Global Developement SN - 591 UR - https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/teaching-and-testing-phone-pandemic.pdf Y2 - 2024/02/19/16:37:19 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Education in Africa: What are we learning? AU - Evans, David K AU - Mendez Acosta, Amina T2 - Journal of African Economies AB - Abstract Countries across Africa continue to face major challenges in education. In this review, we examine 145 recent empirical studies (from 2014 onward) on how to increase access to and improve the quality of education across the continent, specifically examining how these studies update previous research findings. We find that 64% of the studies evaluate government-implemented programs, 36% include detailed cost analysis and 35% evaluate multiple treatment arms. We identify several areas where new studies provide rigorous evidence on topics that do not figure prominently in earlier evidence syntheses. New evidence shows promising impacts of structured pedagogy interventions (which typically provide a variety of inputs, such as lesson plans and training for teachers together with new materials for students) and of mother tongue instruction interventions, as well as from a range of teacher programs, including both remunerative (pay-for-performance of various designs) and non-remunerative (coaching and certain types of training) programs. School feeding delivers gains in both access and learning. New studies also show long-term positive impacts of eliminating school fees for primary school and positive impacts of eliminating fees in secondary school. Education technology interventions have decidedly mixed impacts, as do school grant programs and programs providing individual learning inputs (e.g., uniforms or textbooks). DA - 2021/01/05/ PY - 2021 DO - 10.1093/jae/ejaa009 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) VL - 30 IS - 1 SP - 13 EP - 54 LA - en SN - 0963-8024, 1464-3723 ST - Education in Africa UR - https://academic.oup.com/jae/article/30/1/13/5999001 Y2 - 2022/06/08/10:18:24 ER - TY - RPRT TI - Teaching and Testing by Phone in a Pandemic AU - Crawfurd, Lee AU - Evans, David K. AU - Hares, Susannah AU - Sandefur, Justin AB - How did children learn while schools were closed during 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic? In this paper we evaluate the effectiveness of live tutoring calls from teachers, using a randomized controlled trial with 4,399 primary school students in Sierra Leone. CY - Washington, DC DA - 2021/09// PY - 2021 LA - en M3 - Working Paper PB - Center for Global Development SN - 591 UR - https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/teaching-and-testing-phone-pandemic.pdf Y2 - 2021/11/11/17:34:32 KW - ___working_potential_duplicate ER - TY - JOUR TI - Building State Capacity AU - Di Maro, Vincenzo AU - Evans, David K. AU - Khemani, Stuti AU - Scot, Thiago AB - Although research has established the importance of state capacity in economic development, less is known about how to build that capacity and the role of external partners in the process. This paper estimates the impact of a typical development project designed to build state capacity in a low-income country. Specifically, it evaluates a multilateral development bank project in Tanzania, which incentivized investments in local state capacity by offering grants conditional on institutional performance scores. The paper uses a difference-in-differences methodology to estimate the project impact, comparing outcomes between 18 project and 22 non-project local governments over 2016–18. Outcomes were measured through two rounds of primary surveys of nearly 500 local government officials and nearly 3,000 households. Over the course of the project, measured state capacity improved in project areas, but due to comparable gains in non-project areas, the project’s value-added to change in state capacity is estimated to be zero across all the dozens of relevant variables in the surveys. The data suggest that state capacity is evolving in Tanzania through endogenous changes in trust and legitimacy in the country rather than from financial incentives offered by external partners. DA - 2021/12// PY - 2021 DP - openknowledge.worldbank.org UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36694 Y2 - 2022/12/21/05:33:23 KW - ⛔ No DOI found ER - TY - ELEC TI - What We Learn about Girls’ Education from Interventions That Do Not Focus on Girls | The World Bank Economic Review | Oxford Academic AU - Evans, David K AU - Yuan, Fei DA - 2022/// PY - 2022 UR - https://academic.oup.com/wber/article/36/1/244/6278419?login=false Y2 - 2022/03/24/10:42:38 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Live tutoring calls did not improve learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sierra Leone AU - Crawfurd, Lee AU - Evans, David K. AU - Hares, Susannah AU - Sandefur, Justin T2 - Journal of Development Economics DA - 2023/09// PY - 2023 DO - 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2023.103114 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) VL - 164 SP - 103114 J2 - Journal of Development Economics LA - en SN - 03043878 UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S030438782300069X Y2 - 2023/10/09/11:18:42 ER -