TY - JOUR TI - Experimental Impacts of the “Quality Preschool for Ghana” Interventions on Teacher Professional Well-being, Classroom Quality, and Children’s School Readiness AU - Wolf, Sharon AU - Aber, J. Lawrence AU - Behrman, Jere R. AU - Tsinigo, Edward T2 - Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness AB - We assessed the impacts of a teacher professional development program for public and private kindergartens in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. We examined impacts on teacher professional well-being, classroom quality, and children’s readiness during one school year. This cluster-randomized trial included 240 schools (teachers N ¼ 444; children N ¼ 3,345, Mage ¼ 5.2) randomly assigned to one of three conditions: teacher training (TT), teacher training plus parental-awareness meetings (TTPA), and controls. The programs incorporated workshops and in-classroom coaching for teachers and video-based discussion groups for parents. Moderate impacts were found on some dimensions of professional well-being (reduced burnout in the TT and TTPA conditions, reduced turnover in the TT condition), classroom quality (increased emotional support/behavior management in the TT and TTPA conditions, support for student expression in the TT condition), and small impacts on multiple domains of children’s school readiness (in the TT condition). The parental-awareness meetings had counteracting effects on child school readiness outcomes. Implications for policy and practice are discussed for Ghana and for early childhood education in low- and middle-income countries. DA - 2019/01/02/ PY - 2019 DO - 10.1080/19345747.2018.1517199 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) VL - 12 IS - 1 SP - 10 EP - 37 J2 - Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness LA - en SN - 1934-5747, 1934-5739 UR - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19345747.2018.1517199 Y2 - 2020/05/16/12:37:48 KW - Ghana KW - ___working_potential_duplicate KW - classroom quality KW - early childhood education KW - kindergarten KW - school readiness KW - teacher training and coaching ER - TY - JOUR TI - WORLD BANK STRATEGIC IMPACT EVALUATION FUND (SIEF) AU - Wolf, Sharon AU - Aurino, Elisabetta AU - Brown, Autumn AU - Tsinigo, Edward DA - 2021/// PY - 2021 DP - Zotero SP - 21 LA - en KW - ⛔ No DOI found ER - TY - RPRT TI - Learning in the time of a pandemic and implications for returning to school: effects of COVID-19 in Ghana AU - Wolf, Sharon AU - Aurino, Elisabetta AU - Suntheimer, Noelle AU - Avornyo, Esinam AU - Tsinigo, Edward AU - Jordan, Jasmine AU - Samanhyia, Soloman AU - Aber, J Lawrence AU - Behrman, Jere R T2 - CPRE Working Papers AB - The Covid-19 pandemic led to school closures all over the world, leaving children across diverse contexts without formal education for nearly a year. Remote-learning programs were designed and rapidly implemented to promote learning continuity throughout the crisis. There were inequalities in who was able to access remote-learning during school closures, though little systematic evidence documenting these gaps exists, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. In this study, we surveyed 1,844 children in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, as well as their caregivers and teachers, regarding their engagement in remote learning, literacy and math test scores, and household economic hardships. We document inequalities in access to and engagement in remote-learning activities during the ten months in 2020 in which schools were closed in Ghana. Specifically, children in private schools and children in highersocioeconomic status households engaged in remote-learning at higher rates and received more support from their schools and caregivers. Further, controlling for demographic characteristics and pre-pandemic learning outcomes, we document gaps in children’s literacy and math test scores, with food insecure and low-SES children, as well as children enrolled in public schools before the pandemic, performing significantly worse than their peers (0.2-0.3 SD gap). Finally, children in households that experienced more economic hardships during the pandemic engaged in fewer remote learning activities and had lower literacy and numeracy assessment scores. The findings speak to the potential consequences of increased inequalities due to the pandemic as schools re-open in Ghana and around the world and provide insight into how schools may address these inequalities as children return to the classroom. DA - 2021/08// PY - 2021 DP - Zotero LA - en PB - Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) UR - https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1027&context=cpre_workingpapers KW - ⛔ No DOI found ER - TY - RPRT TI - Nudges to Improve Learning and Gender Parity: Preliminary findings on supporting parent-child educational engagement during Covid-19 using mobile phones AU - Aurino, Elisabetta AU - Tsinigo, Edward AU - Wolf, Sharon AB - Key words: parental education engagement; caregiver engagement; nudges; text messages; schooling; learning; Ghana; gender In this study we evaluate a digital intervention to improve low-literate caregivers’ engagement with their children’s education and development in rural Ghana during the Covid-19 pandemic. The programme was a text-message-based behavioural change intervention for parents / caregivers that aimed to improve caregiver engagement in children’s educational activities, caregiver beliefs about returns to education, as well as children’s learning, enrollment, attendance, and gender parity in education. This household-randomised trial, conducted in the North East, Northern, Savannah, Upper East, and Upper West regions of Ghana, tested four variations of the intervention, varying both duration and a gender-parity focus. Households were randomised to one of five conditions: (i) regular behavioural nudges, 12 weeks; (ii) gender-boost behavioural nudges, 12 weeks; (iii) regular behavioural nudges, 24 weeks; (ii) gender-boost behavioural-nudges, 24 weeks; or (v) control. The interventions were implemented from January to April 2021 (for the 12-week groups) and January to June 2021 (for the 24-week groups). We collected data at midline (April–June 2021) and endline (August–September 2021). Our preliminary results suggest that a short, light-touch, SMS-based intervention can change caregiver behaviours and child outcomes in a rural, low-literate sample. However, the results were complex and intervention effectiveness depended on the caregiver having minimum levels of schooling. For caregivers with no education (65% of the sample), the intervention only increased caregiver expectations on reaching the desired level of education, especially among girls, but reduced educational engagement and some measures of children’s school enrollment and attendance. Educational engagement among Ghanaian caregivers is low relative to peer countries (Bornstein & Putnick, 2012; McCoy et al., 2018). The findings suggest that caregivers may need a base level of capital and resource (e.g., exposure to formal education) to enact the messages and increase their educational engagement with their children. Without this base level of capital, messages may increase caregivers’ aspirations for their children without providing enough support to change educational investments in positive ways. An output of the EdTech Hub, https://edtechhub.org CN - 0083 DA - 2022/02/18/ PY - 2022 LA - en M3 - Technical Report PB - EdTech Hub UR - https://docs.edtechhub.org/lib/PWU63GQS KW - _r:AddedByZotZen ER -