BackHome
Refresh: OffView Personal Schedule
Session Submission Summary

Highlighted Session: Towards effective scaling and systems-change: Lessons from implementation research on improving foundational learning in India, Kenya, Uganda, and Senegal

Tue, March 31, 4:30 to 5:45pm, Hilton, Floor: Lobby Level - Tower 3, Golden Gate 6

Group Submission Type: Highlighted Paper Session

Proposal

The world is facing a learning crisis, exacerbated by COVID-19, in low- and middle-income contexts, with large proportions of students failing to acquire foundational skills—what scholars at the World Bank have termed “learning poverty” (Azevedo, 2020). Globally, this crisis affects 125 million children who are not acquiring basic literacy or numeracy, even after four years in school (UNESCO, 2014). Access and attainment gaps persist even as primary enrollment has improved, especially among marginalized communities and in low-income countries (Kabeer, 2015; Lewis & Lockheed, 2006; UNESCO, 2016). These already dire statistics would be worse if we consider not just basic skill acquisition, but the functional literacy and numeracy needed for lifelong learning and economic mobility (Schlechty, 2004).

There is a growing body of evidence, however, on what works cost-effectively to improve foundational learning (GEEAP Panel, 2023). The strongest evidence points to two leading interventions: structured pedagogy programs (Kim et al., 2020; Evans & Acosta, 2021) and targeted support for students at appropriate learning levels (Cabezas et al., 2011; Banerjee et al., 2010, 2016, 2017; Duflo et al., 2011; Cook et al., 2014), among other promising approaches like sensitizing parents to the benefits of schooling and the promise of quality early childhood education (GEEAP Panel, 2023). Both structured pedagogy and targeted learning approaches are multifaceted and typically include teacher or facilitator training, on-the-job coaching, creation and deployment of teaching and learning materials, use of facilitation guides, student assessment, and increased instructional time using high-yield pedagogical strategies (Piper et al., 2018).

The field is now grappling with questions that extend beyond identifying what works to those like: how to yield consistent effectiveness at scale, how to ensure impact on long-term learning trajectories and educational attainment, and the sequencing or combinations of interventions as well as their sustainability and ownership to yield long-term systems change.

Sustained research-practice partnerships with leading local educational NGOs can help to address these and related questions to advance the field and local progress towards effective systems-change at scale. We draw upon research on scaling, systems change, and implementation research in how we conceptualize and study these issues. Coburn’s (2004) reconceptualization of scale—as including not only breadth but also depth, ownership, and sustainability—frames the aim of transforming systems so they become self-generative in sustaining improvement. We also draw on implementation research scholars to adopt a strategic, long-term research and learning orientation—both to contribute to knowledge and to accelerate systemic improvement. Navigating complex reforms within complex adaptive systems (Holland, 1992) requires evolving research paradigms (Bryk et al., 2015).

The first is what Tipton et al. (2020) describe as a revolutionary shift in focus on heterogeneity. This posits that: “understanding variation in performance is the core problem to solve” (Bryk et al., 2015). Too often, promising interventions fail to work well across all sites and stakeholders. It is not enough to identify what works; we must understand how and why interventions work—or don’t—for whom, and under what conditions. Variation may be rooted in contextual heterogeneity, subgroup differences (D’Agostino et al., 2024; Tipton et al., 2020; Weiss et al., 2014), or implementation variation linked to dosage and fidelity (Angrist & Meager, 2023; Bryk et al., 2015; D’Agostino et al., 2024). Effectiveness is also often shaped by organizational culture and capacity (Bryk et al., 2015; Weiss et al., 2014). Achieving depth, ownership, and sustained change at scale requires engaging key stakeholders “minds and hearts” (Bryk et al., 2015) and fostering the transfer of tacit knowledge throughout the system (Coburn, 2004; Peurach & Glazer, 2012).

A further challenge is underspecified theories of action and weak adaptive management approaches that too often implement fast and learn slow. As Bryk et al. (2015) note, “Typically, a reform's logic of action is vague and almost always underspecified” (p. 25). This implies that, if reforms are to be consistently effective and adequately deep at scale, implementing partners must be supported to more robustly elaborate, strategically measure, continuously learn and refine around, and adaptively strengthen a reforms’ theory of action. This can be a core benefit of long-term research-practice partnerships. Thompson and Wiliam’s (2007) “tight but loose” framework offers a useful hermeneutic for clarifying reform logics and focusing improvement efforts on the strategic drivers of a reform’s theory of action while still allowing adaptiveness and contextualization.

This panel will feature lessons and findings from research-practice partnerships with leading local NGOs working to improve foundational learning at scale and on the path to sustainable systems change. These partnerships involve faculty from the University of Notre Dame and four organizations: ASPIRE (India), Zizi Afrique (Kenya), Building Tomorrow (Uganda), and ARED (Senegal). Each is implementing complex, evidence-based interventions aimed at improving foundational skills, educational access, and systemic capacity, with a dual focus on community ownership and government collaboration.

The panel will present findings from implementation research-oriented collaborations, including:
ASPIRE (India): Lessons on organizational culture, geographic saturation, and the role of a backbone/boundary-spanning organization in scaling impact through government collaboration, while examining sources of heterogeneity in learning gains across communities.

Zizi Afrique (Kenya): A case study of the adaptation of Brazil’s Sobral reforms through South–South policy diffusion in Kenya’s Napenda Kusoma project, including a positive/negative deviance study of implementation variation across schools.

Building Tomorrow (Uganda): Findings from a positive/negative deviance study exploring variable dosage of targeted learning camps, and a case study of capacity-building efforts to strengthen the specification of Building Tomorrow’s theory of action and the team’s adaptive M&E systems.

ARED (Senegal): Results from a hybrid RCT-implementation study of the Nda Wune Vacance summer program, which seeks to accelerate learning for struggling students while addressing summer learning loss, including a mixed methods inquiry into the sources of variation in treatment effects.

Sub Unit

Chair

Individual Presentations

Discussant