Effective teaching through reflective learning – Evaluation of a teacher intervention in a low-income and volatile context

• In Event: Context, Culture, and Pedagogy: Rethinking Educational Effectiveness Across Diverse Settings

Proposal

Motivation
Systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses have shown that high-quality teacher training and education programs have a positive impact on teacher effectiveness through the mechanism of better student-teacher interaction, effective pedagogical practices, and/or improved classroom learning environment (Egert et al., 2020; Zhou et al., 2023). However, not all teacher training programs make a meaningful difference in teacher productivity and, due to their significant implementation costs, are not recommended as cost-effective interventions to address the learning needs of children at scale (Loyalka et al., 2019; World Bank, 2020).
In recent years, policymakers and education leaders in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have focused on structured pedagogical approaches, such as targeted instruction (TI) programs, to enhance the teacher capacity in improving students' foundational skills. While these approaches to teacher professional development (PD) have proven effective in raising students' basic literacy and numeracy skills, the advocates of ‘whole-child’ education argue that they are limited in their scope to support a wide range of student learning and development outcomes. At the same time, less is known about the downstream benefits (for students) of training programs that focus on building general teachers’ skills, as opposed to specific skills that primarily focus on core teaching or pedagogical competencies.
The general trainings typically aim to target teachers’ social-emotional skills (grit, growth mindset, self-efficacy), support their psychological well-being, and/or improve their knowledge in the broadest sense. The interventions with the general skill development approach closely align with the constructivist framework in education, which advocates for an experiential learning process that is marked by learners “learn by fitting new information together with what they already know” and constructing meaning from their experiences (Johnston, 2005). Some of the more recent general teacher training approaches are by Nourani et al. (2023) and Kaur (2023) that target teachers’ scientific inquiry abilities and self-efficacy, respectively. Both studies used robust research designs and found that the interventions had positive effects not only on teacher practices and beliefs, but also on their students’ academic achievement. While these studies were effective in particular sites, most of the at-scale teacher training programs still focus on job-specific approaches. Hence, there is still a significant gap in the literature to understand whether and which general skill development approaches could be effective in educational settings, including non-schooling (tutoring) learning spaces.
Based on the above motivation, we study the impact of a teacher intervention that uses the general skill training approach by targeting teachers to become reflective actors and motivated teachers. Specifically, the training uses an action-reflection pedagogy to encourage teachers to actively reflect on their actions/beliefs and plan meaningful actions in their educational contexts. We randomize teachers from 50 after-school remedial learning centers in Quetta, Pakistan, into treatment and control groups. Between mid-June 2025 to early August 2025, the treatment teachers participated in 5 biweekly half-day training workshops. The action-reflection curriculum of the workshops has two objectives; first, it aims to encourage teachers to actively reflect on their beliefs, actions and teaching practices. Second, it motivates them to propose meaningful actions that could address the issues identified during the workshop. We posit that teachers in these workshops will be actively reflecting on their beliefs and actions, plan classroom activities based on these reflections and in the process create conducive classroom experiences for students. The endline data collection is planned for November 2025, when the academic year formally ends (more details on the experiment can be found on the AEA registry AEARCTR-0016276).
Our study contributes to the extant education literature, particularly on teacher education and training, where it focuses on the general teacher PD approach as opposed to the current widespread structured pedagogical teacher interventions in LMICs. Additionally, the findings of the study could enhance our knowledge of additional mechanisms that could be effective in supporting teacher professional learning and development. The study, if found effective, could provide evidence of an innovative teacher intervention model tailored to the local educational context and could be scaled up in other educational settings within and outside Pakistan in LMICs.
Research Questions
Based on the above motivation, the main research questions are:
a. Whether targeted teachers could become more reflective and self-aware of their actions and beliefs after going through the program and
b. What is the causal impact of the targeted teacher (action-reflection) intervention on teacher practices, beliefs and student outcomes?
Research Design
Method
This study uses a cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) to assess the efficacy of the intervention on teacher practices, beliefs and student outcomes (cognitive and noncognitive). The design aims to rigorously identify the causal effects of the intervention and explore potential mechanisms underlying these effects.
Data and sample
There are several remedial learning centers, operated by the Provincial Institute for Teacher Training (PITE), in Quetta, Pakistan, that provide tutoring and remediation in foundational skills to students of grades 3-5. Quetta city has been battered by violence and political unrest over the past 30 years and has some of the lowest socio-economic indicators in the country.
As part of our study, we have recruited a total of 100 teachers (2 per camp, 50 camps in total) and ~1,100 students (~20-25 students/camp). Data collection is conducted in two phases: baseline and endline, using teacher and student surveys/tests. The teacher surveys will collect information on their background characteristics (e.g., education level and experience) and additional measures of their beliefs, expectations, and perceptions about student learning. The bulk of the data collection will focus on student surveys, which will allow us to compare the program's effectiveness on primary (cognitive skills, attendance) and secondary outcomes (prosocial skills).
Analysis and Findings
The primary analysis will estimate the Intent to Treat (ITT) effect of the training program on teacher attitudes and student outcomes using difference-in-means tests and regression analysis. In addition to our main research question on the effectiveness of the program on teacher and student outcomes, our sample and design allow us to carry out subgroup analyses in order to explore heterogeneity in program impact, if we detect any, based on student characteristics (gender, parental income).

Authors

• Roohullah Gulzari

• Noshin Khan, Teaching Table

• Muzamil Noor, Provincial Institute for Teacher Education