Improving targeted student support: Updated lessons learned from assessment-informed instruction and “catch-up” studies across countries

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Children in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are not learning to read before they reach secondary school. This issue has persisted in recent years, despite increases in school enrollment, as well as an additional focus on increasing the availability and quality of resources for early grade classrooms and schools (Glewwe & Kremer, 2005). Even in countries with more comprehensive education reforms aimed at improving foundational literacy and numeracy, learning targets and curricular standards are often set much too high (well beyond the learning levels of students), making it difficult for students to acquire the basic skills they need to be successful in school (Pritchett & Beatty, 2012). This situation has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the learning losses suffered as a result of school closures (Angrist et al, 2021).

As school systems around the globe continue to re-open, it is essential for governments, donors and implementing partners to consider innovative and effective ways to provide equitable learning opportunities to all students. Recent evidence has shown that one solution may be the use of targeted teaching by student learning level (e.g. assessment-informed instruction) (Banerjee et al, 2016; Duflo et al., 2021). Providing teachers with the ability to identify the skills that individual students need to learn, grouping them by similar needs, and providing instruction that specifically teaches these skills can serve as a cost-effective way to improve learning outcomes and provide “catch-up” opportunities for many students across countries and learning contexts (World Bank, 2020).

While there is promising evidence on the effectiveness of assessment-informed instruction approaches, questions remain about how such approaches can work as a complement to existing, structured comprehensive reading programs, as well as how best to design and implement high-quality, reliable teacher-led classroom-based assessments. This panel is designed to address these gaps.

Accordingly, this panel will build on results presented in a 2022 CIES panel to present updated research and evidence on assessment-informed instruction and remediation approaches implemented in a range of LMICs. The chair will introduce the session with a brief overview of assessment-informed instruction in LMICs, with a focus on common obstacles and limitations to be addressed by panelists. This will be followed by three presentations.

The first presentation provides an overview of a newly developed self-administered, automatically-scored reading assessment. The computer-based reading assessment (CBRA) activity constitutes a ‘proof of concept’ design that explores the parameters of a self-administered and automatically scored reading assessment in English and Filipino for students in the Philippines. The CBRA has been piloted at two time points throughout the school year to determine its reliability. This presentation will provide insight into the development and use of the CBRA, in order to determine its feasibility as a self-administered formative assessment tool for measuring student progress within the classroom.

The second presentation focuses on new evidence for strategies to support assessment-informed instruction in early grade literacy, based on two inter-related studies. The presentation will begin with an overview of teachers’ orientation toward both formal and informal assessments of students’ skills in South Africa and Nepal, with a particular focus on the degree to which assessment data shape teachers’ instruction and support of students, and the challenges they face responding to students’ needs. The study further links teachers’ perspectives with other stakeholders (e.g. principals, heads of department, field staff) and offers new insights into their ability to fulfill coaching responsibilities. The presentation will conclude by showing comparative results of teacher-led formative assessment data with EGRA scores for students across five countries. Jointly, this work will provide insights into how teachers assess student knowledge, how they use that knowledge to adjust instruction and how reliable those data are when compared to large-scale standardized assessments.

The third and final presentation provides final results from an innovative new study, designed to evaluate the impact of an assessment-informed remediation intervention for struggling learners in Ghana (under the Ghana Learning Transition to English Plus program). The remediation program is designed to provide remedial sessions as a supplement to the structured, core reading instruction program that is taught to all students. This serves as a unique adaptation of Pratham’s Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) program, and the presentation will focus on the impact of the remediation effort (above and beyond the comprehensive reading program), as well as the successes and challenges of teacher implementation.

Finally, our discussant will guide a discussion on the principles and complexities of assessment-informed instruction and remediation efforts, with a particular focus on teacher implementation and use of data to target instructional change, as well as potential opportunities and lessons learned.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Jonathan Stern, RTI International

Individual Presentations

• Assessment Informed Instruction: New Insights - Christine Beggs, Room to Read

• Impact of a remediation intervention in the context of a larger reading intervention for early grades in Ghana - Nina Menezes Cunha, FHI 360; Marcia Davidson, USAID, Africa Bureau/SD