IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/labeco/v59y2019icp17-32.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reprint of: Teaching assistants, computers and classroom management

Author

Listed:
  • Johnson, Helen
  • McNally, Sandra
  • Rolfe, Heather
  • Ruiz-Valenzuela, Jenifer
  • Savage, Robert
  • Vousden, Janet
  • Wood, Clare

Abstract

Many students still leave school without a good grasp of basic literacy, despite the negative implications for future educational and labour market outcomes. We evaluate how resources may be used within classrooms to reinforce the teaching of literacy. Specifically, teaching assistants are trained to deliver a tightly structured package of materials to groups of young children aged 5–6. The training is randomly allocated between and within schools. Within schools, teaching assistants are randomly assigned to receive training in either computer-aided instruction or the paper equivalent. Both interventions have a short-term impact on children's reading scores, although the effect is bigger for the paper intervention and more enduring in the subsequent year. This paper shows how teaching assistants can be used to better effect within schools, and at a low cost.

Suggested Citation

  • Johnson, Helen & McNally, Sandra & Rolfe, Heather & Ruiz-Valenzuela, Jenifer & Savage, Robert & Vousden, Janet & Wood, Clare, 2019. "Reprint of: Teaching assistants, computers and classroom management," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 17-32.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:59:y:2019:i:c:p:17-32
    DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2019.07.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537119300727
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.labeco.2019.07.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steven G. Rivkin & Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain, 2005. "Teachers, Schools, and Academic Achievement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(2), pages 417-458, March.
    2. George Bulman & Robert W. Fairlie, 2015. "Technology and Education: Computers, Software, and the Internet," CESifo Working Paper Series 5570, CESifo.
    3. Stephen Machin & Sandra McNally & Martina Viarengo, 2018. "Changing How Literacy Is Taught: Evidence on Synthetic Phonics," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 217-241, May.
    4. Daniel Aaronson & Lisa Barrow & William Sander, 2007. "Teachers and Student Achievement in the Chicago Public High Schools," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 95-135.
    5. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Jonah E. Rockoff, 2014. "Measuring the Impacts of Teachers I: Evaluating Bias in Teacher Value-Added Estimates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2593-2632, September.
    6. M. Caridad Araujo & Pedro Carneiro & Yyannú Cruz-Aguayo & Norbert Schady, 2016. "Teacher Quality and Learning Outcomes in Kindergarten," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 131(3), pages 1415-1453.
    7. Machin, Stephen & McNally, Sandra, 2008. "The literacy hour," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1441-1462, June.
    8. Bulman, G. & Fairlie, R.W., 2016. "Technology and Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education,, Elsevier.
    9. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Jonah E. Rockoff, 2014. "Measuring the Impacts of Teachers II: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2633-2679, September.
    10. Anna Vignoles & Gemma Cherry, 2020. "What is the economic value of literacy and numeracy?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 229-229, October.
    11. Joshua Angrist & Victor Lavy, 2002. "New Evidence on Classroom Computers and Pupil Learning," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(482), pages 735-765, October.
    12. Eric S. Taylor & John H. Tyler, 2012. "The Effect of Evaluation on Teacher Performance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3628-3651, December.
    13. Angrist, Joshua D & Lavy, Victor, 2001. "Does Teacher Training Affect Pupil Learning? Evidence from Matched Comparisons in Jerusalem Public Schools," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(2), pages 343-369, April.
    14. Berlinski, Samuel & Busso, Matias, 2017. "Challenges in educational reform: An experiment on active learning in mathematics," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 172-175.
    15. M. Caridad Araujo & Pedro Carneiro & Yyannú Cruz-Aguayo & Norbert Schady, 2016. "Teacher Quality and Learning Outcomes in Kindergarten," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(3), pages 1415-1453.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Berlinski, Samuel & Busso, Matias & Giannola, Michele, 2023. "Helping struggling students and benefiting all: Peer effects in primary education," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    2. Schochet Peter Z., 2022. "Estimating complier average causal effects for clustered RCTs when the treatment affects the service population," Journal of Causal Inference, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 300-334, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stephen Machin & Sandra McNally & Martina Viarengo, 2018. "Changing How Literacy Is Taught: Evidence on Synthetic Phonics," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 217-241, May.
    2. Marc Steeg & Sander Gerritsen, 2016. "Teacher Evaluations and Pupil Achievement Gains: Evidence from Classroom Observations," De Economist, Springer, vol. 164(4), pages 419-443, December.
    3. Figlio, D. & Karbownik, K. & Salvanes, K.G., 2016. "Education Research and Administrative Data," Handbook of the Economics of Education,, Elsevier.
    4. Simon Briole, 2019. "From Teacher Quality to Teaching Quality: Instructional Productivity and Teaching Practices in the US," Working Papers halshs-01993616, HAL.
    5. Goel, Deepti & Barooah, Bidisha, 2018. "Drivers of Student Performance: Evidence from Higher Secondary Public Schools in Delhi," GLO Discussion Paper Series 231, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    6. Thijssen, Maximiliaan W.P. & Rege, Mari & Solheim, Oddny J., 2022. "Teacher relationship skills and student learning," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    7. Ajzenman, Nicolás & Elacqua, Gregory & Marotta, Luana & Westh Olsen, Anne Sofie, 2021. "Order Effects and Employment Decisions: Experimental Evidence from a Nationwide Program," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 11541, Inter-American Development Bank.
    8. Canales, Andrea & Maldonado, Luis, 2018. "Teacher quality and student achievement in Chile: Linking teachers' contribution and observable characteristics," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 33-50.
    9. Bianchi, Nicola & Lu, Yi & Song, Hong, 2022. "The effect of computer-assisted learning on students’ long-term development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    10. Murphy, Richard & Weinhardt, Felix & Wyness, Gill, 2021. "Who teaches the teachers? A RCT of peer-to-peer observation and feedback in 181 schools," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    11. Matthew P. Steinberg & Morgaen L. Donaldson, 2016. "The New Educational Accountability: Understanding the Landscape of Teacher Evaluation in the Post-NCLB Era," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 11(3), pages 340-359, Summer.
    12. Yang, Minseok & Lee, Ho Jun, 2022. "Do school resources reduce socioeconomic achievement gap? Evidence from PISA 2015," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    13. Kirabo Jackson & Alexey Makarin, 2018. "Can Online Off-the-Shelf Lessons Improve Student Outcomes? Evidence from a Field Experiment," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 226-254, August.
    14. Clark, Andrew E. & Nong, Huifu & Zhu, Hongjia & Zhu, Rong, 2021. "Compensating for academic loss: Online learning and student performance during the COVID-19 pandemic," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    15. Gershenson, Seth, 2021. "Identifying and Producing Effective Teachers," IZA Discussion Papers 14096, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Arlen Guarín & Carlos Medina & Christian Posso, 2017. "Calidad y Cobertura de la Educación Secundaria Pública y Privada en Colombia, y sus Costos Ocultos," Borradores de Economia 1006, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    17. Machin, Stephen & McNally, Sandra & Viarengo, Martina, 2016. ""Teaching to Teach" Literacy," IZA Discussion Papers 9955, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Jacob, Brian A. & Rockoff, Jonah E. & Taylor, Eric S. & Lindy, Benjamin & Rosen, Rachel, 2018. "Teacher applicant hiring and teacher performance: Evidence from DC public schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 81-97.
    19. Goldhaber, Dan & Krieg, John & Theobald, Roddy, 2020. "Effective like me? Does having a more productive mentor improve the productivity of mentees?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    20. Koedel, Cory & Mihaly, Kata & Rockoff, Jonah E., 2015. "Value-added modeling: A review," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 180-195.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Literacy; ICT; Teaching assistants;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:59:y:2019:i:c:p:17-32. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/labeco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.