TY - JOUR
T1 - Which Students Benefit from Independent Practice? Experimental Evidence from a Math Software in Private Schools in India
AU - de Barros, Andreas
AU - Ganimian, Alejandro J.
AU - Venkatachalam, Anuja
N1 - Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge the funding provided by the Douglas B. Marshall, Jr. Family Foundation for this project. We especially thank Karthik Muralidharan for his involvement as a collaborator in the early stages of this project and for subsequent discussions. We thank Pranav Kothari, Aarthi Muralidharan, Sridhar Rajagopalan, Maulik Shah, Nishchal Shukla, and Gayatri Vaidya for making this study possible. This study was registered with the AEA Trial Registry (RCT ID: AEARCTR- 0002455). The usual disclaimers apply.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - This study is one of the first evaluations of independent (i.e., self-guided) practice in math in a developing country. We randomly assigned 4,461 students in grades 4–7 in “unaided” private schools across seven Indian cities who were using a computer-assisted learning software to: (a) a control group, in which they moved from one unit to the next upon completion; or (b) a treatment group, in which they had to complete practice exercises before progressing to the next topic. After six months, the additional practice had a precisely estimated null effect on the math achievement of the average student. However, treatment students with low initial performance outperformed their control counterparts by 0.14 standard deviations (SDs). Our results suggest that independent practice may help private-school students from relatively well-off families in need of catching up with their peers.
AB - This study is one of the first evaluations of independent (i.e., self-guided) practice in math in a developing country. We randomly assigned 4,461 students in grades 4–7 in “unaided” private schools across seven Indian cities who were using a computer-assisted learning software to: (a) a control group, in which they moved from one unit to the next upon completion; or (b) a treatment group, in which they had to complete practice exercises before progressing to the next topic. After six months, the additional practice had a precisely estimated null effect on the math achievement of the average student. However, treatment students with low initial performance outperformed their control counterparts by 0.14 standard deviations (SDs). Our results suggest that independent practice may help private-school students from relatively well-off families in need of catching up with their peers.
KW - Computer-aided learning
KW - India
KW - math instruction
KW - practice exercises
KW - private schools
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U2 - 10.1080/19345747.2021.2005203
DO - 10.1080/19345747.2021.2005203
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85121334886
JO - Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness
JF - Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness
SN - 1934-5747
ER -