Impacts After One Year of “Healing Classroom” on Children's Reading and Math Skills in DRC: Results From a Cluster Randomized Trial

Date
2016-11-14Author
Aber, J. Lawrence
Torrente, Catalina
Starkey, Leighann
Johnston, Brian
Seidman, Edward
Halpin, Peter
Shivshanker, Anjuli
Weisenhorn, Nina
Annan, Jeannie
Wolf, Sharon
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Abstract
his article examines the effects of one year of exposure to “Learning to Read in a Healing Classroom” (LRHC) on the reading and math skills of second- to fourth-grade children in the low-income and conflict-affected Democratic Republic of the Congo. LRHC consists of two primary components: teacher resource materials that infuse social-emotional learning principles into a reading curriculum and collaborative school-based teacher learning circles to exchange information about and solve problems in using the teacher resource materials. To test the impact of LRHC on children's reading and math skills, 40 school clusters containing 64 schools and 4,465 students were randomized to begin LRHC in 2011–2012 or to serve as wait-list controls. Hierarchical linear models (students nested in schools, nested in school clusters) were fitted. Results indicate marginally significant positive impacts on children's reading scores (dwt = .14) and geometry scores (dwt = .14) but not on their addition/subtraction scores. These results should be treated with caution given the reported significance level of p < .10. The intervention had the largest impacts on math scores for language minority children and in low-performing schools. Research, practice, and policy implications for education in low-income conflict-affected countries are discussed. Please note: we do not have permission to upload this as a record but you can follow the link to the full document externally.
Citation
Aber, Lawrence J. et al (2016) ‘Impacts After One Year of “Healing Classroom” on Children's Reading and Math Skills in DRC: Results From a Cluster Randomized Trial’ Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness 10.3: 507-529.DOI
10.1080/19345747.2016.1236160Is part of series
Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness;10:3More details
https://doi.org/10.1080/19345747.2016.1236160Rights holder
Taylor & FrancisRights details
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