Randomized Controlled Trials: Limitations for explaining and improving learning

• In Event: Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) in education: revisiting the promises of the RCT method

Proposal

Moses Oketch (University College London, Institute of Education) convincingly argues that by design the narrow focus on program-level variables risks generating a blind spot for system level analyses. After all, one and the same program or intervention means something different, and is translated and recontextualized differently, in two different educational systems. In other words, “external conditions” matter. To make the case, Oketch presents the comparative RCT study of East Africa Quality in Early Learning (EAQEL) that he and his associates carried out in Kenya and Uganda. Similar to the REAP, the EAQEL program intended to improve student learning.

Author

• Moses Oketch, University College London