Promoting Children's Learning Outcomes in Conflict-Affected Countries: Generating, Communicating, and Incorporating Evidence for Impact
Lead Research Organisation:
New York University
Department Name: NYU Steinhardt (Culture Edu & Human Dev)
Abstract
Nowhere is access to and quality of education more urgent than in low-resourced states afflicted by ongoing conflict. Of the over 75 million children around the world who are currently out of school, over half live in conflict-affected countries (CACs). Of children in conflict-affected areas who are in school, children are not learning. For example, our own research in three eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) indicates that 91 percent of primary school children in grades 2-4 could not correctly respond to one reading comprehension question of the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA), a test designed specifically for use in low- and middle-income countries. We take the position that the provision of quality education can mitigate some of the most severe consequences of conflict for children - and potentially help break the intergenerational transmission of poverty and violence - through the effective provision of safe and supportive spaces that promote children's academic and socioemotional development. But as an international community, we are currently failing in our efforts to do so due to the "stunning lack of evidence" as to what works to promote children's learning in the context of conflict and crisis.
The current project aims to generate, communicate, and incorporate into practice rigorous evidence as to how to promote effective teaching and improve children's academic and socioemotional learning in conflict-affected contexts. We will achieve these objectives using three primary strategies. First, we will generate evidence via original analyses of data from a large-scale, cluster-randomized, school-based intervention program ("Healing Classrooms") undertaken by the International Rescue Committee, New York University, and other partners in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) between 2011 and 2014. To our knowledge, this is the only experimental evaluation of an integrated teacher training/curricular development intervention to promote academic and socioemotional learning in a CAC that has ever been undertaken. We will use the rigorous evidence generated from these analyses to: (1) communicate with policymakers, practitioners, and the academic community cutting-edge social science approaches to the design and implementation of future education strategies in CACs; and (2) work with partner organizations to incorporate the evidence into school-based interventions around the world.
In generating evidence, we will move beyond assessing whether a school-based intervention works to promote effective teaching and children's learning outcomes: We will use sophisticated statistical methods to consider both the mechanisms by and the contexts in which the intervention worked. Such evidence is essential for: (1) strengthening and replicating the mechanisms of the intervention that do work; (2) and tailoring the intervention to different school- and community-contexts. Given that Healing Classrooms intervention is currently being implemented by the IRC in 12 countries (including the DRC, Central African Republic, Afghanistan, and Chad), the evidence generated by the proposed project - in conjunction with our communication and incorporation activities - has the potential to improve the learning outcomes of millions of children around the world.
The current project aims to generate, communicate, and incorporate into practice rigorous evidence as to how to promote effective teaching and improve children's academic and socioemotional learning in conflict-affected contexts. We will achieve these objectives using three primary strategies. First, we will generate evidence via original analyses of data from a large-scale, cluster-randomized, school-based intervention program ("Healing Classrooms") undertaken by the International Rescue Committee, New York University, and other partners in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) between 2011 and 2014. To our knowledge, this is the only experimental evaluation of an integrated teacher training/curricular development intervention to promote academic and socioemotional learning in a CAC that has ever been undertaken. We will use the rigorous evidence generated from these analyses to: (1) communicate with policymakers, practitioners, and the academic community cutting-edge social science approaches to the design and implementation of future education strategies in CACs; and (2) work with partner organizations to incorporate the evidence into school-based interventions around the world.
In generating evidence, we will move beyond assessing whether a school-based intervention works to promote effective teaching and children's learning outcomes: We will use sophisticated statistical methods to consider both the mechanisms by and the contexts in which the intervention worked. Such evidence is essential for: (1) strengthening and replicating the mechanisms of the intervention that do work; (2) and tailoring the intervention to different school- and community-contexts. Given that Healing Classrooms intervention is currently being implemented by the IRC in 12 countries (including the DRC, Central African Republic, Afghanistan, and Chad), the evidence generated by the proposed project - in conjunction with our communication and incorporation activities - has the potential to improve the learning outcomes of millions of children around the world.
Planned Impact
Primary beneficiaries (those with whom we have established relationships who will be directly impacted by the proposed research project):
The International Rescue Committee is a global humanitarian aid and development NGO that is committed to developing and incorporating rigorous research on program effectiveness into strategic program design, implementation, and evaluation. Building on a 4-year relationship implementing and evaluating the Healing Classrooms program in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the IRC has recently established a strategic partnership with NYU's IDEAS for Kids in order to ensure maximum cohesion and effectiveness across projects. Given this partnership, results generated by the proposed analysis will be incorporated into the design and implementation of future school-based interventions in over 12 conflict-affected countries, including the Central African Republic, Chad, Uganda, and Haiti. In addition, the IRC is continuing to provide school-based interventions in the DRC through the UK Department for International Development. Results from the proposed secondary analysis can be immediately applied to this ongoing intervention. As detailed in the Pathways to Impact (PtI) section, this will be accomplished primarily through: (1) dissemination of findings at a global meeting of IRC staff; and (2) collaboration on future project design and evaluation.
The DRC Ministry of Education recently made a formal commitment to create a comprehensive policy that defines the overarching framework for teacher training, ties teacher training to curricular improvements, and outlines the government's role in professional development for teachers. The results of the proposed project will provide evidence of effectiveness and scalability of one possible model for putting a federal policy into practice: a school-based in-service teacher training that provides culturally appropriate and sustainable coaching, learning, and opportunities for practice. As detailed in the PtI section, the evidence will be communicated through: (1) hiring of Ph.D-level DRC researcher to serve as a consultant on evidence-based approaches to education policy in the DRC; (2) the development of targeted policy briefs; and (3) an in-country stakeholder meeting.
Funding (e.g., USAID) and philanthropic (e.g., the NoVo Foundation) organizations originally supported the implementation of the Healing Classrooms program in the DRC. Results from the analyses proposed herein will provide additional evidence not only of the impact of such a program, but of how and where the program worked or didn't work to improve children's learning. In turn, these and other organizations can use such information to refine areas for further inquiry in education programming in low-income and CACs. Results will be communicated via reports to donor organizations and conversations with targeted and existing contacts at the respective organizations.
Secondary beneficiaries (those whom through networking activities with primary beneficiaries will be indirectly impacted by the knowledge generated through the proposed project):
Organizations like the World Bank's Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF), International Network for Education in Emergencies, Save the Children, and the Learning Metrics Task Force - with whom the IRC and NYU have extensive contacts - can use the evidence generated by this project to inform strategies for: (1) promoting effective teaching and children's outcomes in CACs; and (2) promoting the 7 essential global domains of children's learning. Policy briefs developed for use with DRC government officials and blog posts will be used to disseminate findings through networks.
Tens of thousands of teachers and millions of students in the Democratic Republic of the Congo would benefit professionally and developmentally, respectively, from an evidence-based federal policy to promote teacher training and children's learning.
The International Rescue Committee is a global humanitarian aid and development NGO that is committed to developing and incorporating rigorous research on program effectiveness into strategic program design, implementation, and evaluation. Building on a 4-year relationship implementing and evaluating the Healing Classrooms program in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the IRC has recently established a strategic partnership with NYU's IDEAS for Kids in order to ensure maximum cohesion and effectiveness across projects. Given this partnership, results generated by the proposed analysis will be incorporated into the design and implementation of future school-based interventions in over 12 conflict-affected countries, including the Central African Republic, Chad, Uganda, and Haiti. In addition, the IRC is continuing to provide school-based interventions in the DRC through the UK Department for International Development. Results from the proposed secondary analysis can be immediately applied to this ongoing intervention. As detailed in the Pathways to Impact (PtI) section, this will be accomplished primarily through: (1) dissemination of findings at a global meeting of IRC staff; and (2) collaboration on future project design and evaluation.
The DRC Ministry of Education recently made a formal commitment to create a comprehensive policy that defines the overarching framework for teacher training, ties teacher training to curricular improvements, and outlines the government's role in professional development for teachers. The results of the proposed project will provide evidence of effectiveness and scalability of one possible model for putting a federal policy into practice: a school-based in-service teacher training that provides culturally appropriate and sustainable coaching, learning, and opportunities for practice. As detailed in the PtI section, the evidence will be communicated through: (1) hiring of Ph.D-level DRC researcher to serve as a consultant on evidence-based approaches to education policy in the DRC; (2) the development of targeted policy briefs; and (3) an in-country stakeholder meeting.
Funding (e.g., USAID) and philanthropic (e.g., the NoVo Foundation) organizations originally supported the implementation of the Healing Classrooms program in the DRC. Results from the analyses proposed herein will provide additional evidence not only of the impact of such a program, but of how and where the program worked or didn't work to improve children's learning. In turn, these and other organizations can use such information to refine areas for further inquiry in education programming in low-income and CACs. Results will be communicated via reports to donor organizations and conversations with targeted and existing contacts at the respective organizations.
Secondary beneficiaries (those whom through networking activities with primary beneficiaries will be indirectly impacted by the knowledge generated through the proposed project):
Organizations like the World Bank's Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF), International Network for Education in Emergencies, Save the Children, and the Learning Metrics Task Force - with whom the IRC and NYU have extensive contacts - can use the evidence generated by this project to inform strategies for: (1) promoting effective teaching and children's outcomes in CACs; and (2) promoting the 7 essential global domains of children's learning. Policy briefs developed for use with DRC government officials and blog posts will be used to disseminate findings through networks.
Tens of thousands of teachers and millions of students in the Democratic Republic of the Congo would benefit professionally and developmentally, respectively, from an evidence-based federal policy to promote teacher training and children's learning.
People |
ORCID iD |
| John Aber (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Aber J
(2016)
Impacts After One Year of "Healing Classroom" on Children's Reading and Math Skills in DRC: Results From a Cluster Randomized Trial
in Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness
Aber JL
(2017)
Promoting children's learning and development in conflict-affected countries: Testing change process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
in Development and psychopathology
Torrente C
(2019)
Improving Primary Education in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: End-Line Results of a Cluster-Randomized Wait-List Controlled Trial of Learning in a Healing Classroom
in Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness
Torrente, C.
Learning in a Healing Classroom in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Results from a two-year randomized wait-list controlled trial.
in International Journal of Educational Development
| Description | Our research was intended to generate rigorous evidence as to whether, how, and in what contexts a teacher professional development/integrated curricular intervention (hereafter, Learning in a Healing Classroom (LHC)) implemented by the International Rescue Committee in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) improved primary-school aged children's academic skills and social-emotional well-being. Notably, this was the first rigorous experimental evaluation of a school-based program designed to improve multiple domains of children's learning in a conflict-affected country. Thus given the urgent need for an evidence base on education in emergencies programming, we focus here on detailing the new knowledge gained about LHC as a result of our research. Details about (a) collaborations that resulted from this project and (b) research methodologies can be found in sections 'Collaborations' and 'Models,' respectively. Through our research we discovered that: (1) During the initial year of program roll-out, students in schools implementing Learning in Healing Classrooms evidence the following improvements compared to students in schools that did not implement LHC: • Improved reading scores on the Early Grade Reading Assessment • Improved math scores on the Early Grade Math Assessment • Increased perceptions of the safety and supportiveness of their teachers and schools These results were obtained first in 2011-2012 in one cohort of schools in four education subdivisions in the Katanga region (hereafter, Katanga 4 cohort). They were then replicated in a second cohort in 2012-2013 in South Kivu and two other education subdivisions in Katanga (hereafter, Kivu+ cohort). The size of the impact is as good as or better than for other successful interventions designed to improve academic achievement in low-income countries (McEwan, 2015). However, the size of the impacts are still too small to meet the needs of Congolese children. (2) Two years into the initiative as the program expanded in the Katanga 4 cohort, the impacts of LHC on reading, math and school supportiveness faded out. Retrospective qualitative data collection suggested that the quality of implementation suffered in that second year due to the increase in treatment schools without a corresponding increase in staff. Unfortunately, due to budget cuts at the start of the project, we were unable to prospectively collect the type of implementation data that would have allowed us to formally test the extent to which the impact of LIHC varied according to implementation level and quality. (3) In neither cohort of schools did LHC: (a) reduce children's mental health problems or experiences of peer victimization. While we found that the changes in the supportiveness and predictability of school environments were associated with children's mental health and peer victimization, we suspect they were not large enough to create significant impacts. Moreover, it is possible that the design of LHC was incomplete. It might not have adequately accounted for and targeted all of the factors that improve mental health and peer relationships. It might not have adequately accounted for and targeted all of the factors that improve mental health and peer relationships. |
| Exploitation Route | Our research findings can be used by several different set of actors: 1. The International Rescue Committee: TThe IRC is implementing Learning in a Healing Classroom (LIHC) in 12+ crisis-affected countries. As described in the follow-on grant recently submitted to ESRC-DfID, the results from our evaluation have informed the design of a new joint IRC-NYU initiative, "Education in Emergencies: Evidence for Action" (3EA, see "Collaborations"), which seeks to marry program delivery and rigorous research in order to rapidly build an evidence base for education programming in emergency contexts. 2. Researchers interested in improving education in low-income or conflict-affected countries: In order to learn the most from our evaluation, we would have benefited from having two other types of data: (a) implementation data, which would have allowed us to rigorously test whether null findings were attributable to problems in program design or problems in the quality of program implementation; and (b) systems level data, which would have helped us understand the ways in which governing and finance of education in the DRC constricted the effectiveness of the program. We recommend that researchers mounting future education evaluations include both types of data collection in their efforts. Ministry of Primary, Secondary, and Professional Education (MPSPE) in the DRC: At our Reflection Workshop the advisor to the DRC Minister of Education stated that, "DRC needed to participate in more experimental interventions that provide unique insight into the Congolese education system," and that, "there was government support for expanding Learning in a Healing Classrooms to additional provinces." IRC colleagues are currently working in-country to conduct follow-up advocacy and dissemination activities. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education |
| Description | In collaboration with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), we used our research findings to understand: (1) how to improve the design of IRC's Learning in a Healing Classroom model; and (2) what additional or better types of research are needed to enable more effective program and policy action. In turn, NYU and the International Rescue Committee collaboratively designed and were awarded funding for a major new initiative that takes this next step in developing and testing affordable and scaleable strategies to improve education in emergencies. Specifically, we will be working to implement and rigorously test 1-3 low-intensity, targeted (LIT) interventions in 3 different emergency contexts: in one region deeply affected by the Syrian refugee crisis (Lebanon), one region deeply affected by the Ebola crisis (Sierra Leone) and one region deeply affected by Boko Haram and migration from West Africa to Europe (Niger). By marrying program with research, we will work to ensure that children in these settings attend safe and predictable schools and gain the reading, math and social-emotional skills they need to thrive and succeed in school and life. Additional details of this new collaboration can be found under the Collaborations section of Research Fish. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2015 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education,Other |
| Impact Types | Societal,Policy & public services |
| Description | IRC Education in Emergencies Programming and Practice |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Learning in a Healing Classroom adopted as "base" pedagogical approach in IRC |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | Based upon evidence generated in OPEQ, Learning in a Healing Classroom (LIHC) pedagogical approach was applied and iterated upon for International Rescue Committee's conflict-afflicted regions. However, because we learned from OPEQ that LIHC did not contribute to children's well-being, the partnership (NYU-IRC) is not co-developing and testing low-cost targeted social-emotional interventions on top of LIHC base curriculum. |
| Description | Policy Advisement on Global Business Coalition for Education |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Description | Education in Emergencies: Evidence for Action (3EA) |
| Amount | $8,000,000 (USD) |
| Organisation | Dubai Cares |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Arab Emirates |
| Start | 03/2016 |
| End | 01/2018 |
| Description | Promoting Children's Learning in Conflict-Affected Countries: Communicating Evidence for Impact |
| Amount | $20,000 (USD) |
| Organisation | Society for Research on Child Development (SRCD) |
| Sector | Learned Society |
| Country | United States |
| Start | 03/2015 |
| End | 04/2016 |
| Title | Learning in a Healing Classroom DRC Student- and Teacher-Level Databases |
| Description | This project utilized data collected from primary-school aged students and teachers in 2 provinces (Katanga and South Kivu) of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 2010 and 2013 (for more information about the sampling procedure, see Torrente et al., 2015). While data collection was supported by USAID and the NoVo Foundation, funds from ESRC/DfID grant ES/M004732/1 were used to clean data from the 3rd data collection point (2013) and organize data across time points. Specifically, we applied a cohort framework to data analysis and organization. Within this framework, our project has two cohorts of schools - named Katanga 4 and Kivu+ - that are defined by geographic location and timing of implementation. The Katanga 4 cohort includes data from students and teachers in 63 schools in four educational subdivisions of Katanga province in which program roll-out began in 2011 and expanded in 2012. The Kivu+ cohort includes data from students and teachers in 58 schools in South Kivu and 2 other educational provinces in Katanga in which program roll-out began in 2012. Databases containing student and teacher outcomes are structured according to this framework: 1. Student-level databases: There are two student-level databases: (1) 2011-2012, including baseline and roll-out phase data in the Katanga 4 cohort (~4,137 students)*; and (2) 2012-2013, including expansion phase data in the Katanga 4 cohort (~4,308) and baseline and roll-out phase data in the Kivu+ cohort (~4,300 students). Included in the databases are the following constructs and measures: - Effective teaching: Children answered surveys consisting of two scales: Supportive Schools and Teachers; and Predictable and Cooperative School Contexts - Children's socioemotional learning: Children answered surveys consisting of two scales: Mental Health Problems; and Victimization - Children's academic learning: Children were assessed on their academic skills using the EGRA (Early Grade Reading Assessment) and EGMA (Early Grade Math Assessment) (RTI International, 2008) - Demographic information: Children completed a demographic survey about their household and personal characteristics 2. Teacher-level databases: There are two teacher-level databases: (1) 2011-2012, including baseline and roll-out phase data in the Katanga 4 cohort (~498 teachers); and (2) 2012-2013, including expansion phase data in the Katanga 4 cohort and baseline and roll-out phase data in the Kivu+ cohort (~644 teachers total). Included in the databases are the following constructs and survey measures: - Teacher stress: Teachers answered surveys consisting of two scales: Burnout; and Job Dissatisfaction - Teacher well-being: Teachers answered surveys consisting of two scales: Personal accomplishment; and Goals and Motivation - Demographic information: Teachers answered a survey about their personal and household characteristics, and living and work conditions *Note that sample sizes are all approximate given that different students were administered different measures to reduce participant burden. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Simply put, these research databases enabled all of the impacts/outcomes recorded in Research Fish to date. Specifically, the data included in the databases has been used thus far to: (1) quantify the impact of the Learning in a Healing Classroom (LHC) on child and teacher outcomes by timing and phase of implementation; (2) to identify children's perceptions of the supportiveness and predictability of their classrooms as plausible processes by which LHC may operate to improve children's academic skills and social-emotional well-being. In turn, these findings have fueled: (1) the preparation of an academic paper, a dissertation, and a technical report, with more underway; (2) the extension and funding of a major strategic initiative with the International Rescue Committee to test additional strategies to improve LHC; and (3) significant engagement and communication activities across multiple types of stakeholders. |
| URL | https://sartdatacollection.org/login |
| Title | Learning in a Healing Classroom School-Level Database |
| Description | As described in a letter to ESRC/DfID dated November 18, 2014, we used funds from grant ES/M004732/1 to collect GPS coordinate data of 42 schools in our sample in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. To do so, we trained 10 local enumerators in geospatial data collection techniques and supervised data collection efforts. Once the coordinates from all schools had been received, we merged them with existing school coordinate data from the Katanga province to create a GIS database of the 121 schools in our evaluation sample. In this coming year we will use ARC/GIS software to map the location of the schools against reports of armed conflict compiled in the Armed Conflict Location and Event Database (ACLED). This will result in a new database that includes information about how many conflict events took place near sample schools; the average distance of conflict events from our schools; the most frequent type of conflict event, etc. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | As described above, the development of this research database resulted in 10 local Congolese enumerators receiving training in geospatial data collection. |
| Title | Multi-level structural equation modeling (SEM) |
| Description | In our ESRC/DfID Case for Support, we proposed testing whether there is evidence that multiple indices of effective teaching mediate the impact of Learning in a Healing Classroom (LHC) on children's academic and social-emotional outcomes. We could not employ causal mediation strategies to test this hypothesis given they assume the exclusion principle: that that the effect of the treatment on children's outcomes must operate through one and only one mediator. In our theory of change, and consistent with basic theories in developmental psychopathology and social ecology, we explicitly posit that LHC may operate through multiple mechanisms. Instead, we tested our hypotheses using multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM). MSEM is a relatively recently developed statistical technique (Preacher, Zyphur, & Zhang, 2010) that allows for tests of mediation involving variables at different levels of a multilevel framework by partitioning the variance into between-school and within-school levels. This improves upon other strategies for testing for mediation by disentangling between- and within-effects without bias. Applying this method to our data resulted in four different models that examine whether two indices of effective teaching - children's perceptions of the (a) supportiveness and (b) predictability and cooperation of their classrooms - plausibly mediate the impact of LHC on children's academic and social-emotional outcomes. |
| Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
| Year Produced | 2015 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | As discussed above, a paper summarizing the results of these models will be published in Development and Psychopathology, a high-impact academic journal, as part of a special issue on children and armed conflict (see Aber et al., in press). |
| Description | Education in Emergencies: Evidence for Action (3EA) |
| Organisation | International Rescue Committee |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | The research findings in the DR Congo generated with the support of ESRC/DfID grant ES/M004732/1 directly shaped both the programmatic and research design of a new New York University Global TIES for Children (TIES) and International Rescue Committee (IRC) initiative, Education in Emergencies: Evidence for Action (3EA). We present specific research findings in the Key Findings section. More broadly, however, we learned that the IRC's model teacher professional development/integrated curricular intervention (hereafter, Learning in a Healing Classroom (LHC)) does show promise: after one year of implementation in two different cohorts, LIHC increased the supportiveness of teachers and schools (Effect Size (ES) = .15-.22), while also improving literacy (ES = .14-.21) and numeracy skills (ES = .14-.32). The evaluation also indicated areas that need improvement, in terms of (a) maintaining program effects as the program is scaled up; and (b) increasing impact on social-emotional outcomes. With these results in hand, we conducted a workshop with the IRC to decide what adjustments needed to be made in order to improve the effectiveness of the IRC's education in emergencies programming, currently being implemented in 12+ countries around the world. We concluded that: 1. Brief, affordable, and targeted social-emotional and literacy strategies should be added to the LIHC curriculum in order to better address children's mental health and well-being, as well as to bolster children's reading and math skills. 2. Future research should include a focus on program implementation in order to understand why impacts faded out over time. The 3EA initiative is testing the impact of adding such targeted strategies to the LHC curriculum in three different emergency contexts (see below): in one region deeply affected by the Syrian refugee crisis (Lebanon), one region deeply affected by the Ebola crisis (Sierra Leone) and one region deeply affected by Boko Haram and migration from West Africa to Europe (Niger). ESRC-DFID is generously contributing to supporting and expanding the research in Niger, by providing funds to help test the impact of LCT SEL strategies with the addition of studying digital data collection, qualitative work on contexts and systems affecting implementation, and classroom video capture. This will no doubt provide invaluable information regarding not just what works but how and why. In addition, our research team is focusing on executing an ambitious research agenda to continue to improve the nascent evidence base on education in emergencies programming. This includes:1. Measurement research, including adapting and testing a diverse set of state-of-the-art and contextually appropriate measurement tools such as (a) tablet-based performance-based assessments of executive functioning and other social-emotional skills; (b) videotaped direct behavioral observations of classroom environments; and (c) psychometrically refined and contextually appropriate measures of emergent literacy and numeracy;2. Implementation research, including identifying and testing measures of intervention fidelity that can be used to monitor how complex programs are actually being implemented in rapidly shifting contexts in the field; and 3. Evaluation research, including rapidly generating evidence as to whether, how, and in what contexts the brief, affordable, targeted strategies work, and then rapidly prototyping the strategies for additional implementation and testing. |
| Collaborator Contribution | As described above, in response to the research findings generated through ESRC/DfID grant ES/M004732/1, the IRC and NYU collaboratively conducted the workshop on how to improve the IRC's education in emergencies programming. Once we decided on strategies for improvement, the IRC and NYU worked on developing proposals to funding organizations, including USAID, the World Bank, and Dubai Cares; IRC took the lead in submitting these proposals. Once the initiative was approved (by Dubai Cares), the IRC has mobilized their relevant country offices - Lebanon, Niger, and Sierra Leone - as well as their Education Technical Unit to begin to: (1) adapt and mount the "Learning in Healing Classrooms" school-based intervention by September 2016; (2) design brief, affordable, and targeted mindfulness, executive functioning, and mobile literacy strategies; (3) plan how these strategies can be incorporated into existing programming; and (4) outline concrete steps and expectations for program implementation. |
| Impact | This partnership was established in late 2015 and project activities began in March 2016. We have generated two impact briefs on preliminary results for Cycle One in Lebanon and Year One in Niger. Pearson, UNHCR, and Save the Children named the 3EA research-practice partnership as one of 20 "promising practices" in refugee education. TIES/NYU, the IRC, and Porticus co-convened a side event to the U.N. General Assembly meeting, "From Intention to Reality: Generating and Using Evidence to Transform Education in Emergencies." We also have presented our findings at multiple conferences and convenings, including Comparative and International Education Society, Society for Research on Child Development, Society for Prevention Research, International Education Funder's Group, and Global Conference on Children on the Move. In addition, IRC and TIES/NYU presented a case study of findings from 3EA at the International Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) roundtable on PSS/SEL in Florence, Italy. 3EA was selected to co-lead the framing session for the roundtable. Global TIES and IRC have also partnered with the Sesame Workshop and the Lego Foundation to bring rigorous research and innovative programming to refugee populations in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Bangladesh through the Macarthur Foundation's 100 and Change grant. |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | Biweekly calls with the International Rescue Committee |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | As detailed in the project's Pathways to Impact document, throughout the course of the ESRC/DfID award the NYU project team held biweekly (Skype/in-person where feasible) briefings with senior members of the IRC's Research, Evaluation, and Learning (REL) and In-country Program and Research teams. These meetings were used to: (1) update team members on the status of program activities and research; (2) invite feedback to ensure relevance to and continuity between broader programmatic activities; (3) workshop communications strategies for and key messages about the research findings.In turn, these briefings ensured that all resulting publications, presentations, and other communications activities were co-produced, contextualized, and aligned across organizations. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014,2015,2016,2017,2018 |
| Description | GIS Training (Bukavu, South Kivu) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The project team Research Associate (Starkey) visited South Kivu in June 2015 to train 10 local enumerators on how to use GPS technology to collect geospatial data. This activity resulted in a complete database of GPS coordinates for the 121 schools in our evaluation sample, which will be used in upcoming analyses to understand how the impact of Learning in a Healing Classroom varied according to community violence. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Global Compact on Learning Donor Network at United Nations General Assembly (New York) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Supporters |
| Results and Impact | 24 representatives of diverse funding organizations (e.g., MasterCard Foundation, ELMA, Dubai Cares) and research institutes (e.g., the Brookings Center for Universal Education) participated in this side event to the 2015 UN General Assembly meeting. The PI of the research team (Aber) gave a presentation at this event incorporating the research findings from the Learning in a Healing Classroom evaluation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in order to illustrate the potential of social-emotional learning initiatives in conflict-affected countries. The presentation sparked discussion and follow-up from donor organizations. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Global TIES for Children Launch Event (New York) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | As described in this project's Case for Support (see section, Institutional Capacity, the PI of the project is the founder and co-director of a new international research center at New York University, Global TIES for Children: Transforming Intervention Effectiveness and Scale (referenced in the Case for Support as IDEAS for Kids). NYU officially launched the center in May 2015 at an event in New York City attended by a diverse 200+ people audience of practitioners, policy makers, academics, media, and students. The research findings from this project were incorporated into the launch event in two ways: 1. The President of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), David Miliband, gave a keynote address referencing the IRC-NYU collaboration in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), while the PI and the head of the IRC's Child and Youth Protection unit gave presentations that shared research findings from the project. 2. We created an accessible infographic about the project and research findings that we distributed as a handout and exhibited as a poster. Outcomes from this event included: (1) increased awareness and interest in how evidence-based practice can promote children's development and learning in low-income and conflict-affected countries; (2) increased awareness and interest in the Learning in a Healing Classrooms project in the DRC and its effectiveness, as evidenced by media follow-up by NPR (see NPR entry); and (3) strengthened collaboration and communication between the IRC and TIES. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/site/ataglance/2015/06/nyu-steinhardt-launches-international-research-cent... |
| Description | In-Country Reflection Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The Reflection Workshop, held on May 24, 2016 in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, aimed to: 1) unite US researchers with professionals in DRC, thereby facilitating the exchange of international perspectives on providing quality education; 2) bring together those from the developmental science and policy communities to bridge understanding of findings and their application; 3) highlight contextual issues faced during the course of this project and the ramifications of those issues for scaling and future research; and 4) enhance understanding of findings for our non-academic partners. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | In-Country Stakeholder Seminar and Meetings (DRC) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | As stated in a letter to ESRC/DfID dated November 18, 2014, the goals of the in-country stakeholder seminar were two-fold: (1) to communicate the results of completed Wave 1 impact analyses to local IRC staff; and (2) to engage in key stakeholder meetings with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Ministry for Primary, Secondary, and Professional Education (MEPSP) and other providers of primary school services (e.g., Catholic Relief Services, Save the Children). Two representatives of the project team (Project Director Tubbs and Research Associate Starkey) travelled to Kinshasa, DRC to fulfill these purposes. Our stakeholder seminar was attended by representatives of 8 organizations that directly or indirectly support primary school services in the DRC (Catholic Relief Services, IRC, CONETRE, Youth for New Society, RTI International, USAID, Save the Children, and UNESCO); unfortunately, the DRC Ministry for Primary, Secondary, and Professional Education (MEPSP) was holding a series of meetings that week that prevented their attendance. The seminar was structured as a series of brief presentations to introduce the Learning in a Healing Classroom initiative and evaluation, followed by a roundtable discussion. The discussion provided attendees an opportunity to: (1) interpret and contextualize findings from Wave 1 of the evaluation; (2) voice concerns about research methodology, including measurement and randomization strategies; and (3) provide feedback on effective communication strategies for the release of the final research findings. We followed the stakeholder seminar with individual meetings with representatives from attending organizations in order to better understand their work and follow up on any questions/concerns. The primary outcome of this event was an increased ability of the research team to fully ground our work in the local context, as will be reflected in future publications. Secondary outcomes included facilitating the coproduction of knowledge as well as increasing awareness of the Learning in a Healing Classrooms in-country. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Invited Symposium: Society for Research in Adolescence |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Invited symposium for Society for Research in Adolescence. Topic was: Resilience in the Face of Community Violence: Schools as Contexts for Social-Emotional Development in the D.R. Congo. Several aspects of the program were presented with time for post-presentation discussion. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | NPR Goats and Soda Blog |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The Project Director (Tubbs) was featured in a piece on the National Public Radio's Goats and Sodas blog that highlighted her research in the Democratic Republic of Congo supported by ESRC/DfID grant ES/M004732/1. This interview directly resulted from the staff reporter's attendance at the Global TIES for Children launch event (see entry, Global TIES Launch Event), which sparked her interest in publicizing how research can be used to improve education for children most in need. The intended audience of this blog is members of the general public interested in global issues. While it is difficult to quantify the impact of a blog piece, it did garner 23 comments from the general public. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/10/10/446240456/how-they-spent-their-global-summer-vac... |
| Description | Society for Research on Child Development |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Topic of presentation: Can "Learning in a Healing Classroom" enhance the academic and psychosocial development of children in conflict-affected countries? Lessons from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Presentation ended with time for Q&A for audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |