Highlighted Session: Learning in groups, learning in loops: How to start using data for development in implementation research

Group Submission Type: Highlighted Paper Session

Proposal

With the growth of data for development, evidence-based interventions and reforms have increasingly applied “what we know” about what works in education (Akyeampong, 2023). Given more than a dozen years of investment in researching “what works,” there is ample basis for where to start in promoting learning, basic skills, and the goals of SDG4. As an industry, however, we engage less often in exploring how that evidence is used, whether and how the findings are replicated, and how the results in each context might inform or ensure scaling with impact. Even when we do use additional rounds of data for development, we tend not to share the results of those efforts widely so that stakeholders locally or globally can learn from our process and progress (Dowd, 2024).

This group of implementers is using data for development in a continual process of implementation research to apply what works in foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) in their contexts and adapt and improve it as they move to scale their work. Building from the BE2 guidance note on implementation research (Allison, 2023), they are setting up to ask and answer questions about implementation to learn whether and how contextual factors affect successful implementation in a specific system and act upon the evidence to expand impact and scale. They actively apply the What Work Hub for Global Education framework that urges implementers to get beyond efficacy trials into “Efficacy +” studies that “pressure test evidence” in new contexts and at an expanded scale (Angrist & Kaffenberger, 2024).

This roundtable will share a frame for implementation research (IR) efforts as well as three instances of IR in the real world as a basis for the discussion. First, we’ll hear about three modes of IR and education stakeholders’ views on the key themes and challenges in undertaking IR in education. Then, we’ll hear from Rising Academies about improving uptake of structured pedagogy teacher guides across countries in West Africa, fro VVOB about leveraging self-initiated peer-mentoring to improve the implementation of TaRL in Uganda, and from Justice Rising about iterating school-based training that supports teachers to form powerful teaching habits in DRC. All have chosen to participate in uBoraBora, a fund for using implementation evidence to inform continuous improvement and become “better, better” (the meaning of uBoraBora in Kiswahili) in pursuit of children’s learning. They are grappling with several of the common IR challenges, such as the demand for evidence among stakeholders, the willingness to act and adapt practice based upon evidence, the leveraging of local researchers, addressing equity, translating evidence into actionable changes in implementation, and dealing with the tension between context-specific evidence and generalizable evidence. The roundtable will explore via example how these teams have set up to learn in loops with those on the ground in their implementation sites. We’ll also learn across these teams and from others in the room about their efforts and progress to date.

This roundtable continues the conversation about what works, why, how, and for whom. Using implementation research in their FLN programming, these organizations are actively pursuing evidence to iterate toward what works best in their contexts. They will speak to what they have found so far, how it will shape implementation, and what they hope to learn from the feedback loops that they have set up as they move forward in their implementation and research. They’ll reflect on the systems needed to keep data for development both coming in and being used as well as the results that they seek and the lessons that they have already learned along the way. Then we’ll have (insert TBD) start the reflection and dialogue as a discussant.

Sub Unit

• Global Literacy SIG

Organizer

• Amy Jo Dowd, NA

Chairs

• Felicity Burgess, uBoraBora

• Angelica Towne Amporo, Meerkat Learning

Individual Presentations

• Everyone is talking about it, but no one is doing it: Is implementation research informing adaptation towards scale? - Amy Jo Dowd, NA

• Rise Better: Collaborating with teachers to improve teacher support for the effective uptake and delivery of structured teacher guides - Anne-Fleur Lurvink, Rising Academy Network; Francisco Carballo, Rising Academy Network

• Drawing on teachers' initiatives and experiences to design effective peer-mentoring solutions supporting TaRL implementation in Uganda. - Millicent Okwarampe, VVOB - Education For Development; Kakula Sambanu Wandi, VVOB - Education For Development; Sharon Schroen, VVOB - education for development; Stefaan Vande Walle, VVOB - education for development

• In search of conflict-proof teacher training solutions - Dieudonne Ombeni, Justice Rising; Ee-Reh Owo, Justice Rising International