What Really Works to Improve Learning in Developing Countries? : An Analysis of Divergent Findings in Systematic Reviews

Over the course of just two years, at least six reviews have examined interventions that seek to improve learning outcomes in developing countries. Although the reviews ostensibly have the same objective, they reach sometimes starkly different conclusions. The first objective of this paper is to ide...

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Main Authors:	Evans, David K., Popova, Anna
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank 2018
Subjects:	EDUCATION IMPACT EVALUATION HUMAN CAPITAL STUDENT LEARNING
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29308

id	okr-10986-29308
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-293082021-05-25T10:54:43Z What Really Works to Improve Learning in Developing Countries? : An Analysis of Divergent Findings in Systematic Reviews Evans, David K. Popova, Anna EDUCATION IMPACT EVALUATION HUMAN CAPITAL STUDENT LEARNING Over the course of just two years, at least six reviews have examined interventions that seek to improve learning outcomes in developing countries. Although the reviews ostensibly have the same objective, they reach sometimes starkly different conclusions. The first objective of this paper is to identify why reviews diverge in their conclusions and how future reviews can be more effective. The second objective is to identify areas of overlap in the recommendations of existing reviews of what works to improve learning. This paper demonstrates that divergence in the recommendations of learning reviews is largely driven by differences in the samples of research incorporated in each review. Of 229 studies with student learning results, the most inclusive review incorporates less than half of the total studies. Across the reviews, two classes of programs are recommended with some consistency. Pedagogical interventions that tailor teaching to student learning levels—either teacher-led or facilitated by adaptive learning software—are effective at improving student test scores, as are individualized, repeated teacher training interventions often associated with a specific task or tool. Future reviews will be most useful if they combine narrative review with meta-analysis, conduct more exhaustive searches, and maintain low aggregation of intervention categories. 2018-02-02T19:38:07Z 2018-02-02T19:38:07Z 2016-08 Journal Article World Bank Research Observer 1564-6971 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29308 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research Africa Sub-Saharan Africa
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	EDUCATION IMPACT EVALUATION HUMAN CAPITAL STUDENT LEARNING
spellingShingle	EDUCATION IMPACT EVALUATION HUMAN CAPITAL STUDENT LEARNING Evans, David K. Popova, Anna What Really Works to Improve Learning in Developing Countries? : An Analysis of Divergent Findings in Systematic Reviews
geographic_facet	Africa Sub-Saharan Africa
description	Over the course of just two years, at least six reviews have examined interventions that seek to improve learning outcomes in developing countries. Although the reviews ostensibly have the same objective, they reach sometimes starkly different conclusions. The first objective of this paper is to identify why reviews diverge in their conclusions and how future reviews can be more effective. The second objective is to identify areas of overlap in the recommendations of existing reviews of what works to improve learning. This paper demonstrates that divergence in the recommendations of learning reviews is largely driven by differences in the samples of research incorporated in each review. Of 229 studies with student learning results, the most inclusive review incorporates less than half of the total studies. Across the reviews, two classes of programs are recommended with some consistency. Pedagogical interventions that tailor teaching to student learning levels—either teacher-led or facilitated by adaptive learning software—are effective at improving student test scores, as are individualized, repeated teacher training interventions often associated with a specific task or tool. Future reviews will be most useful if they combine narrative review with meta-analysis, conduct more exhaustive searches, and maintain low aggregation of intervention categories.
format	Journal Article
author	Evans, David K. Popova, Anna
author_facet	Evans, David K. Popova, Anna
author_sort	Evans, David K.
title	What Really Works to Improve Learning in Developing Countries? : An Analysis of Divergent Findings in Systematic Reviews
title_short	What Really Works to Improve Learning in Developing Countries? : An Analysis of Divergent Findings in Systematic Reviews
title_full	What Really Works to Improve Learning in Developing Countries? : An Analysis of Divergent Findings in Systematic Reviews
title_fullStr	What Really Works to Improve Learning in Developing Countries? : An Analysis of Divergent Findings in Systematic Reviews
title_full_unstemmed	What Really Works to Improve Learning in Developing Countries? : An Analysis of Divergent Findings in Systematic Reviews
title_sort	what really works to improve learning in developing countries? : an analysis of divergent findings in systematic reviews
publisher	Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank
publishDate	2018
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29308
_version_	1764469020662169600

What Really Works to Improve Learning in Developing Countries? : An Analysis of Divergent Findings in Systematic Reviews

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