Live tutoring calls did not improve learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sierra Leone

Telementoring and Homeschooling During School Closures: A Randomized Experiment in Rural Bangladesh

“…They discovered that integrating mobile phones as teaching tools led to higher writing and math scores compared to a conventional adult education approach. However, in-person or distant 3 Our study closely aligns with Angrist et al (2022) and Crawfurd et al (2023) in terms of treatment delivery and context. However, there are several program features that are different from Angrist et al (2022) and Crawfurd et al (2023).…”

“…In Brazil, nudges through text messages significantly improved standardized test scores of high-school students by (Lichand & Christen, 2021). Crawfurd et al (2023) find that fifteen-minute weekly tutoring calls with children from their school teachers in Sierra Leone, over sixteen weeks, increased educational engagement by parents (0.31 SD) and children (0.34 SD), but did not affect test scores. Wang et al (2023) find that weekly 70-90 minutes of audio lessons accessed via interactive voice response by primary school-aged children in rural Bangladesh, over fifteen weeks, improved their numeracy and literacy scores by 0.60 SD.…”

Under the Hood of an EdTech Study in Kenya: Implementation Challenges, Successes and Lessons Learned

“…The initial phone-tutoring study conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic in Botswana showed that learning gains were particularly large when instruction was targeted (⇡Angrist et al, 2022). Reinforcing this insight, evidence from a study in Sierra Leone that assessed phone interventions without targeted instructional mechanisms found little improvement in learning (see ⇡Crawfurd et al, 2023). An additional study showed that targeted instruction could improve over time, corresponding to larger treatment effects (⇡Angrist et al, 2023a).…”

Education without Formal Schooling through Tablets and Tutors: Evidence from Out-of-School Children in Bangladesh during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Learning over phone is still a new concept and there is much to be learned on the topic (Angrist et al 2020). In the recently developed literature on the use of phone-based education, most researchers have found positive results on student learning in Bangladesh (Wang et al 2023, Islam et al 2022, Hassan et al 2021, Kenya (Angrist et al 2023, Schueler et al 2022, Côte d'Ivoire (Sobers et al 2023), and India, Nepal, the Philippines, and Uganda (Angrist et al 2023), except for Crawfurd et al (2023) who find challenges in the implementation and spillover effects were affecting their results in Sierra Leone.…”