Bi Project Policy Area: Education
BI Project
Social Multipliers at Work: Improving Children’s Outcomes Through Aspirations and Role Models
Every year, governments spend large amounts
of resources on development programs that aim
to change poor households’ behaviors and attitudes
toward investment in the education, health, and
nutrition of their children as a way to end the cycle
of poverty. One key mechanism that can achieve this
is working to raise aspirations. But how do you do
that in practice?
In this project, together with Karen Macours of the
Paris School of Economics and the Ministry of Family
in Nicaragua, we find that…
We all know that if a 13-year-old has his mind set on
something, it is quite difficult to try to change it. This
is exactly the type of challenge that the Ministry of
Education in Peru is approaching with students in
public schools and high schools, targeting those from
low-income households in particular.
Teenagers often have pre-conceived ideas about their
own intelligence, which influences how they react to
academic challenges. If a student thinks he is not smart
enough, he believes there is…
This research shows that teacher and administration absences can negatively affect students’ reading and math abilities.Working with the Peruvian Ministry of Education (MINEDU) and the UK’s Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), we tested whether attendance could be influenced by sending different behaviorally informed messages by email. One email message conveyed the current level of attendance of one’s school district the “social norm” while the other built on teachers’ pro-social…
Among the education and psychology literature
that looks at the role of beliefs and school outcomes,
Growth Mindset theory (GM) posits that by helping
students shift their theory of learning to one where
intelligence isn’t a fixed state – but rather, that it’s
malleable, and something you can improve and grow
over time – students can become self-motivated to
improve both academic effort and outcomes. Teaching
youth how to foster a GM doesn’t just offer a potential
solution at low cost…
In Indonesia, a replication of a Growth Mindset intervention had significant impacts on student academic performance – particularly in schools located in regions that could benefit the most. Student learning outcomes in Indonesia have remained lower than their regional neighbors and other middle-income countries, as suggested by the results of the Program for International Student Assessment – PISA. Aside from socioeconomic conditions and access to educational resources, student motivation…
Challenge
Students in low-income districts are less likely to sign up to take the Gifted and Talented (G&T) admissions test than their peers in higher-income districts. As a result, fewer students from low-income districts test into and attend G&T programs that could improve educational outcomes and provide meaningful opportunities. To the extent that the city may use sign-up rates as an indicator of demand, and thus where additional G&T programs should be located, low sign-up rates can mean…
PROJECT SUMMARY
Arizona State University freshmen students eligible for the Student Engagement and Employment Development Plan (SEED), a work-study program, received emails designed to emphasize the benefits of joining the program and eliminate hassles in the application process.
IMPACT
The redesigned emails increased the number of students applying for SEED jobs by 3 percentage points, from 9% to 12% of students.
Source: B-Hub
PROJECT SUMMARY
Text messages were delivered to parents of children from 3 to 5 years old enrolled in public preschools in Uruguay using a government mobile app. These messages targeted malleable factors producing students’ absences and sought to influence parent’s attitudes and beliefs about preschool attendance to increase children’s presence in the classroom.
IMPACT
Children in remote areas increased attendance by 1.5 days, suggesting an increase in cognitive development of 0.20 SD.…