Improving Learning: Developing Measures of Accountability and Evaluating their Association with Students’ Gains in Achievement in Nepal

Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Time: 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. (EDT)

Presenter: Uttam Sharma

Description

This webinar focuses on the findings from the research project titled “Improving Learning: Developing Measures of Accountability and Evaluating their Association with Students’ Gains in Achievement in Nepal”. We conducted a study of nearly 4000 eighth-grade students attending 114 public and private schools in the western Chitwan Valley of Nepal. In this study, we measured students’ academic achievement at the beginning and end of eighth grade, collected data from students’ families, and used multiple methods to measure governance arrangements and instructional practices at schools. We find that public and private schools in the study did indeed engage in different governance practices. However, we found that governance practices in schools were unrelated to instructional practices in schools, even though some of the instructional practices we measured were positively associated with student’s gains in academic achievement over the eighth grade. We discuss why our findings are rich with implications for research, theory, and public policies focused on the problem of improving student achievement in developing countries. There will be a Q&A session after the presentation.

Support provided by NICHD (R25 HD101358).