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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2016‒12‒18
three papers chosen by Laura Ştefănescu Centrul European de Studii Manageriale în Administrarea Afacerilor |
| By: | Karthik Muralidharan; Abhijeet Singh; Alejandro J. Ganimian |
| Abstract: | We present experimental evidence on the impact of a technology-aided after-school instruction program on learning outcomes in middle school grades in urban India, using a lottery that provided students with a voucher to cover program costs. A key feature of the program was its ability to individually customize educational content to match the level and rate of progress of each student. We find that lottery winners had large increases in test scores of 0.36σ in math and 0.22σ in Hindi over just a 4.5-month period. IV estimates suggest that attending the program for 90 days would increase math and Hindi test scores by 0.59σ and 0.36σ respectively. We find similar absolute test score gains for all students, but the relative gain was much greater for academically-weaker students because their rate of learning in the control group was close to zero. We show that the program precisely targets instruction to students' preparation level, thus catering effectively to the very wide variation in student learning levels within a single grade. The program was highly cost-effective, both in terms of productivity per dollar and unit of time. Our results suggest that well-designed technology-aided instruction programs can sharply improve productivity in delivering education. |
| JEL: | C93 I21 O15 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22923&r=knm |
| By: | Mellander, Erik (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy) |
| Abstract: | Register data are described, in general terms and in specific terms, focusing on informational content from an educational science perspective. Arguments are provided for why educational scientists can benefit from register data. It is concluded that register data contain lots of information relevant for educational science. Furthermore, two specific features of register data are considered: their panel data nature, implying that register data analyses under certain conditions can account for aspects on which the registers are not informative, and that they contain intergenerational links, facilitating the separation of genetic and environmental influences on learning. It is observed that while register data do not contain direct links between students and teachers this shortcoming can be overcome by merging register data with survey data on these links. Being population data, register data enable analyses which are not feasible to conduct by means of survey data. An illustration is provided of how quantitative and qualitative researchers can benefit from combining register-based statistical analyses with in-depth case studies. The use of register data in evaluations of causal effects of educational interventions is also described. To facilitate the exploitation of the aforementioned advantages, a discussion of how to get access to register data is included. |
| Keywords: | register data; Nordic; panel data; intergenerational links; ethical review; combining quantitative and qualitative methods; causal effect valuations |
| JEL: | C81 H43 H52 I20 I21 |
| Date: | 2016–11–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2016_022&r=knm |
| By: | Yicheng Wang (University of Oslo) |
| Abstract: | Online appendix for the Review of Economic Dynamics article |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:append:16-19&r=knm |