Improving teachers’ support to leveled smaller groups in an after-school remediation program in Senegal using applied behavioral science

• In Event: Using Applied Behavioral Science to improve Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa and India

Proposal

Foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remain low, and Senegal is no exception. In 2019, 74% of children in Senegal at late primary age were not proficient in reading (World Bank, 2019), and pre-pandemic assessments showed that fewer than 10% of Senegalese 15-year-olds were achieving minimum proficiency levels in reading, mathematics and science (PISA, 2017). School closures due to Covid-19 have further exacerbated these outcomes.

Recognizing the importance of FLN, Associates in Research & Education for Development (ARED) launched an after-school remediation program that aims to improve FLN outcomes among 2nd and 3rd graders in Senegal whose schooling was most affected by the pandemic. The program trains teachers on how to use a new methodology, differentiated pedagogy in leveled smaller groups. This methodology requires teachers to take many actions that are new to them. One of these is managing multiple groups of students, who are grouped based on either their reading or mathematics level, at the same time. Through qualitative interviews and classroom observations, we identified that teachers were not providing adequate support to all groups of students – they primarily focused on the day’s ‘relearning group’ and spent limited time and provided limited support to the day’s ‘autonomous group.’ This resulted in many students in the autonomous group being off task, inhibiting their ability to improve their FLN skills. We uncovered four behavioral barriers that led to teachers limited support to the day’s ‘autonomous groups':
1. Teachers prioritize the upskilling of the relearning group to such an extent that the needs of the autonomous groups are overlooked.
2. Teachers are content if autonomous groups are quiet, even if they are not on task.
3. Teachers do not have a rule of thumb of when to provide support to autonomous groups.
4. Teachers face obstacles that impede their ability to provide support to autonomous groups.

We are currently in the process of user-testing three behaviorally informed designs that aim to overcome these barriers and get teachers to increase the amount of support they provide to the days ‘autonomous groups.’ These designs consist of:
1. Commitment during training: An additional module in the pre-service training that utilizes role modeling/playing to illustrate and practice how to set autonomous groups up for success, rotate and provide support to them. This is accompanied by a commitment exercise that helps teachers form strategies for how to achieve their goals.
2. Heuristics checklist and reminders: A short guide with a checklist outlining what teachers should do before, at the start of and during class. This is accompanied by reminders in the lesson plan to rotate to autonomous groups.
3. Ndaw Wune Promise: A simple catchy chant said at the beginning of class and in the transition from reading to math to help teachers and students set goals for how they will behave in class and what they will accomplish.

Our evaluation will run from October 2023 – April 2024. By the conference date, we will be able to present the final designs being tested.

Authors

• Carolina Better, ideas42

• Katherine Flaschen, ideas42