Cumulative experimental research programs and the advancement of knowledge about sustainable system-wide gains in literacy learning

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday II)

Group Submission Type: Refereed Round-Table Session

Proposal

Deaton and Cartwright (2018) recently argued that “without the structure that allows us to place RCT results in context, or to understand the mechanisms behind those results, not only can we not transport whether ‘it works' elsewhere, but we cannot do one of the standard tasks of economics, which is to say whether the intervention is actually welfare improving. Without knowing why things happen and why people do things, we run the risk of worthless casual (‘fairy story’) causal theorizing and have given upon one of the central tasks of economics and other social sciences.” (p. 17) in this analysis RCTs can only play a role in building scientific knowledge and useful predictions if they are part of a cumulative research program. Such a program would complement RCTs with other research methods and include conceptual and theoretical development. This panel consists of three papers which provide a comparative perspective from three powerful cumulative research programs in India (Pratham and teaching at the right level), Kenya (RTI and the Tusome Initiative) and South Africa (the Early Grade Reading Study) that take up the Deaton and Cartwright challenge of building on RCT research using complementary research methodologies which allow them to speak to the problem of causality and take seriously their role in contributing conceptually and theoretically to the advancement of the field of international education. Using country-specific cumulative research programs as the unit of comparison, this panel makes an original contribution both to debates about research methodology in international education and to our understanding of causal claims about what works to improve learning outcomes in resource-constrained contexts.

Deaton, A., & Cartwright, N. (2018). Understanding and misunderstanding randomized controlled trials. Social Science & Medicine, 210, 2-21.

Sub Unit

• SIG: Global Literacy

Individual Presentations

• Insights from 15-year partnership to develop, test, and scale Teaching at the Right Level in India and Africa - John Floretta, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)

• Pilot Research to Large Scale Practice: Kenya’s Path to a National Literacy Program Underpinned by Evidence - Salome Ong'ele, RTI International; Benjamin Piper, RTI International; Joseph Destefano, RTI International

• Structured pedagogy in Early Grade Reading Study in South Africa: the second generation questions - Brahm D. Fleisch, University of Witwatersrand; Stephen Taylor, Department of Basic Education, South Africa; Nompumelelo Mohohlwane, Department of Basic Education, South Africa; Carol Nuga-Deliwe, Department of Basic Education, South Africa; Janeli Kotze, Department of Basic Education, South Africa