Abstract:
|
International education presents researchers with country-specific challenges. This research highlights potential solutions utilized in creating balanced treatment groups, accounting for hard to reach schools, and tracking schools across time in the 2012-2016 USAID Prioritizing Reform, Innovation, and Opportunities for Reaching Indonesia's Teachers, Administrators, and Students (PRIORITAS). The 2012-2016 PRIORITAS study measured the impact of an intervention in three cohorts with the early grade reading assessment (EGRA) tool to evaluate the reading level of grade 3 students in Indonesia. The issues and cultural lessons learned from the grade 3 study contributed to the design of a longitudinal impact evaluation of leveled reader access in grade 1 Indonesian classrooms. By design, the grade 1 study applied a two-wave propensity score matching (PSM) approach at the school and student level to manage study costs and balance treatment groups across time from the beginning to the end of the school year. Methodology for applying the PSM technique as well as results and comparisons between the PRIORITAS studies are presented.
|