Angrist, Noam

2 Publications in AERD

Author Publications

Experimental evidence on learning using low-tech when school is out

By Angrist, Noam

School closures occurred extensively during the COVID-19 pandemic, and occur in other settings, such as teacher strikes and natural disasters. The cost of school closures has proven to be substantial, particularly for households of lower socioeconomic status, but little evidence exists on how to mitigate these learning losses. This paper provides experimental evidence on strategies to support learning when schools close. We conduct a large-scale randomized trial testing two low-technology interventions-SMS messages and phone calls-with parents to support their child in Botswana. The combined treatment improves learning by 0.12 standard deviations, which translates to 0.89 standard deviations of learning per US$100, ranking among the most cost-effective interventions to improve learning. We develop remote assessment innovations, which show robust learning outcomes. Our findings have immediate policy relevance and long-run implications for the role of technology and parents to support education provision during school disruptions. A randomized trial in Botswana during COVID-19 provides evidence of effective distance education using 'low-tech' mobile phone approaches when school is disrupted. Weekly phone tutoring and SMS messages improved learning cost-effectively.

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Practical lessons for phone-based assessments of learning

By Angrist, Noam

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 new short-term and long-term health risks through lost education. Measuring these effects in real time is critical to inform effective public health responses, and remote phone-based approaches are one of the only viable options with extreme social distancing in place. However, both the health and education literature are sparse on guidance for phone-based assessments. 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 practical lessons to guide researchers and service providers as they try phone-based learning assessments. We provide preliminary evidence that phone-based assessments can accurately capture basic numeracy skills. 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) use effective strategies to encourage respondents to pick up the phone, (7) build rapport with adult caregivers and youth respondents, (8) choose the most cost-effective medium and (9) account for potential bias in samples. © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ.

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