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How Can Technology Improve Learning? Information Technology, Education and Welfare in Niger

技术如何改善学习？

基本信息

批准号：
ES/L005433/1
负责人：
Jenny Carson Aker
金额：
$ 48.11万
依托单位：
Tufts University
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2014
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2014 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FL005433%2F1
关键词：
How Technology Improve Learning Information

项目摘要

Education is essential for economic and social development. Yet over 775 million adults worldwide are unable to read and write in any language (UNESCO 2012). These indicators are particularly low in the landlocked countries of sub-Saharan Africa, where literacy rates are less than 40 percent. In Niger, the subject of our study, fewer than 30 percent of the population is literate, with large discrepancies between men and women.Despite the immediate private and social returns to adult education, adult education programs are a highly neglected entry point for development interventions. This is often attributed to low enrollment, high drop-out and rapid skills depreciation (Romain and Armstrong 1987, Abadzi 1994, Oxenham et al 2002, Ortega and Rodriguez 2008), possibly due to the limited relevance of such skills in daily life or limited opportunities to practice in one's native language.The widespread growth of mobile phone coverage in many developing countries, including Niger, has the potential to increase the incentives for and facilitate the acquisition of literacy and numeracy skills by illiterate adults. By teaching students how to use mobile phones, adult learners may be able to practice their literacy skills outside of class by sending and receiving short message services (SMS), making phone calls and using mobile money (m-money) applications, all of which require basic fluency with the numbers, symbols and letters on mobile phone keypads. Mobile phone technology could also affect returns to education by allowing households to use the technology for other purposes, such as obtaining price and labor market information and facilitating informal private transfers (Aker and Mbiti 2010).Our research team ran a successful randomized evaluation in Niger in 2009-2011 (Project ABC) and showed that a mobile phone-enhanced adult education program improved literacy and math skills of adult education participants by 19-25 s.d., equivalent to an additional year of education (Aker et al 2012). This difference remains significant over time, even as learning depreciates. Building upon the successful pilot program, this research will provide rigorous evidence on the impacts of adult education programs on educational and socio-economic outcomes in Niger. Yet more importantly, this research will assess the extent to which information technology - in particular, mobile phones -- can affect learning outcomes and households' asset ownership, ability to deal with shocks and farm and off-farm earnings. This will be achieved by including two variations of the basic education intervention. The first variation will teach students in the basic adult education course how to use mobile phones, similar to a previous pilot program in Niger. The second intervention will also provide educational content to adult learners via short message service (SMS), thereby allowing us to measure the extent to which information technology can be used as a distance-learning tool. In addition to its impacts on adult learning, this research will also investigate the extent to which adult education influences parents' investments in children's educational outcomes and which education affects intra-household and intra-village decision-making. And finally, since the research will be conducted in an expanded study population (250 villages, as compared with 117 in the pilot), we will be able to assess the scalability of the approach, thus allowing us to directly address the first overarching research question set out in this call for proposal ("What approaches are most effective in enabling the poorest to exit and stay out of poverty, and under what conditions can such approaches be replicated elsewhere and at scale?")This research will be achieved through a unique collaboration between Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and researchers at Tufts University, the University of Ottawa, the London School of Economics and the University of Abdoul Moumouni.

教育对经济和社会发展至关重要。然而，全世界有超过7.75亿成年人无法用任何语言进行读写（教科文组织，2012年）。这些指标在撒哈拉以南非洲的内陆国家特别低，识字率不到40%。在我们研究的对象尼日尔，识字人口不到30%，男女之间的差距很大，尽管成人教育能立即带来私人和社会回报，但成人教育方案是一个被高度忽视的发展干预切入点。这通常归因于入学率低、辍学率高和技能迅速贬值（Romain and Armstrong 1987，Abadzi 1994，Oxenham et al 2002，Ortega and Rodriguez 2008），这可能是由于这些技能在日常生活中的相关性有限，或者用母语练习的机会有限。移动的电话覆盖在许多发展中国家的广泛增长，包括尼日尔，有可能增加激励措施，促进成年文盲获得识字和识数技能。通过教学生如何使用移动的电话，成人学习者可以在课外通过发送和接收短信服务、打电话和使用移动的货币应用程序来练习识字技能，所有这些都要求基本熟练掌握移动的电话广告上的数字、符号和字母。移动的电话技术还可能影响教育回报，因为它允许家庭将该技术用于其他目的，例如获取价格和劳动力市场信息，促进非正式私人转移（Aker和Mbiti，2010年）。我们的研究团队于2009-2011年在尼日尔成功进行了随机评价（ABC项目），并表明一个移动的手机增强成人教育计划提高了成人教育参与者的识字和数学技能，相当于额外一年的教育（Aker et al 2012）。随着时间的推移，这种差异仍然很大，即使学习贬值。在成功的试点计划的基础上，这项研究将提供严格的证据，成人教育计划对尼日尔的教育和社会经济成果的影响。更重要的是，这项研究将评估信息技术-特别是移动的电话-在多大程度上能够影响学习成果和家庭资产所有权、应对冲击的能力以及农业和非农业收入。这将通过纳入基础教育干预的两种变化来实现。第一个变体将教基础成人教育课程的学生如何使用移动的手机，类似于之前在尼日尔的一个试点项目。第二项干预措施还将通过短信服务向成人学习者提供教育内容，从而使我们能够衡量信息技术可在多大程度上用作远程学习工具。除了对成人学习的影响外，这项研究还将调查成人教育在多大程度上影响父母对儿童教育成果的投资，以及教育对家庭内部和村庄内部决策的影响。最后，由于这项研究将在扩大的研究人群中进行，（250个村庄，而试点中只有117个），我们将能够评估该方法的可扩展性，从而使我们能够直接解决本提案呼吁中提出的第一个首要研究问题（“什么方法最有效地使最贫穷的人摆脱贫困，在什么条件下，这种做法可以在其他地方大规模推广？“）这项研究将通过天主教救济会（CRS）与塔夫茨大学、渥太华大学、伦敦经济学院和阿卜杜勒·穆穆尼大学的研究人员之间的独特合作来实现。