Ben Piper reports on insightful work that he and co-authors have done comparing various education technology intervention in Kenya in terms of both effectiveness (do they improve reading ability?) and the cost-effectiveness (what’s the cost per reading gain?).
I recommend his full post (or the research paper it’s based on). Here are a couple of highlights:
When compared to traditional literacy programs, the more intensive ICT interventions did not produce large enough gains in learning outcomes to justify the cost. This is not to say that each of the ICT interventions did not produce improvements in students’ reading ability…. [But] the cost-effectiveness of all of these programs might still be significantly lower than a clear investment in high quality literacy programs…. In additional to monetary cost, an opportunity cost existed…. Many of the teachers, tutors, and students lacked exposure to technology and the time and energy spent on learning how to use the technology reduced the amount of time for instructional improvement activities.
When costs are considered, there are non-ICT interventions that could have larger impacts on learning outcomes with reduced costs; one such option could include assigning the best teachers to the first grade when children are learning how to read, rather than to the end of primary school as many schools do.
Economists will disagree with the standard errors if I understand the specification right: Randomization is at the district level and I don’t believe the authors cluster the standard errors.
But I don’t think that will change the fundamental message here: Even if there are some gains from education technology, we have to ask when they will be most likely to be worth the cost.
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