TY - JOUR
T1 - Hard Cash and Soft Skills
T2 - Experimental Evidence on Combining Scholarships and Mentoring in Argentina
AU - Ganimian, Alejandro
AU - Barrera-Osorio, Felipe
AU - Biehl, María Loreto
AU - Cortelezzi, María Ángela
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Inter-American Development Bank.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, © 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/4/2
Y1 - 2020/4/2
N2 - We evaluate a long-standing program run by one of the largest education foundations in Argentina that offers scholarships and nonacademic mentoring to secondary school students. We randomly assigned 408 grade 6 students within 10 public schools in the Province of Buenos Aires to either receive the program throughout secondary school or not to receive it. After three years, the program improved students’ academic behaviors (e.g., studying before an exam or catching up on missed work), but we find little evidence that these changes translated into broader improvements in students’ academic mindsets (e.g., self-beliefs about performance and efficacy), perseverance (e.g., grit), or learning strategies (e.g., metacognition). The program also improved students’ performance in school during the first year (e.g., grades, attendance, and passing rates), but we do not find similar gains in subsequent years. This may be due to a large share of treatment students being expelled from the program for not meeting its requirements. The program did not improve student learning or personality traits (e.g., conscientiousness). Finally, we find some heterogeneous effects for female students and students from low-income families.
AB - We evaluate a long-standing program run by one of the largest education foundations in Argentina that offers scholarships and nonacademic mentoring to secondary school students. We randomly assigned 408 grade 6 students within 10 public schools in the Province of Buenos Aires to either receive the program throughout secondary school or not to receive it. After three years, the program improved students’ academic behaviors (e.g., studying before an exam or catching up on missed work), but we find little evidence that these changes translated into broader improvements in students’ academic mindsets (e.g., self-beliefs about performance and efficacy), perseverance (e.g., grit), or learning strategies (e.g., metacognition). The program also improved students’ performance in school during the first year (e.g., grades, attendance, and passing rates), but we do not find similar gains in subsequent years. This may be due to a large share of treatment students being expelled from the program for not meeting its requirements. The program did not improve student learning or personality traits (e.g., conscientiousness). Finally, we find some heterogeneous effects for female students and students from low-income families.
KW - Argentina
KW - cash transfers
KW - mentoring
KW - scholarships
KW - soft skills
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U2 - 10.1080/19345747.2019.1711271
DO - 10.1080/19345747.2019.1711271
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85082959742
SN - 1934-5747
VL - 13
SP - 380
EP - 400
JO - Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness
JF - Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness
IS - 2
ER -