The Impact of Teaching at the Right Level in Zambia: With and Without Additional Continuous Professional Development for Teachers

Last registered on April 15, 2025

Pre-Trial

General Information

Title

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0014922

Initial registration date

November 27, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

December 03, 2024, 1:34 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated

April 15, 2025, 7:30 PM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country

Zambia

Region

Central Province

Country

Zambia

Region

Itezhi-Tezhi District

Country

Zambia

Region

Western Province

Primary Investigator

Name

Andreas de Barros

Affiliation

University of California, Irvine

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2022-06-15

End date

2025-04-30

Keywords

Education

Additional Keywords

teaching at the right level; teacher effectiveness; at-scale experiment; scaling

JEL code(s)

C93 - Field Experiments; H52 - Government Expenditures and Education; I21 - Analysis of Education; I28 - Government Policy; J24 - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

Remedial education and differentiated instruction are promising approaches to tackle the low learning levels that plague many low- and middle-income countries. However, little is known about how to promote these strategies at scale. Researchers are evaluating the impact of the “Teaching at the Right Level” program on students’ foundational literacy and mathematics skills. The program—which runs in Zambia’s public primary schools and is locally known as “Catch Up”—divides children into groups based on their learning needs and pace and adds extra time during which teachers provide tailored instruction to each group. The study also investigates the effectiveness of combining the Catch Up program with a continuous professional development program for teachers. This trial was first registered ahead of completing its endline data collection; the trial's baseline report was also published at the beginning of the study period (https://www.gpekix.org/sites/default/files/webform/submit_to_the_library/268/TaRL%20Africa_Zambia%20Evaluation_%20Baseline%20Report%202023.pdf).

External Link(s)

Baseline report

J-PAL website for the study

Registration Citation

Citation

de Barros, Andreas. 2025. "The Impact of Teaching at the Right Level in Zambia: With and Without Additional Continuous Professional Development for Teachers." AEA RCT Registry. April 15. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14922-1.5

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Zambia's Ministry of Education has embraced the Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) methodology since the 2016-17 academic year. The Zambian TaRL program focuses on grades three to five, and it is locally known as Catch Up (CU). It currently covers eight (out of ten) provinces, reaching 4,900 schools and impacting about 735,000 learners per year. The program divides children into groups based on their learning needs and pace and adds extra remedial lessons during which teachers provide differentiated instruction to each group. All of the program implementers are regular teachers and inspectors commonly assigned to the public primary schools.

Based on the findings from an earlier mixed-methods study and a subsequent year of iterative piloting on a small scale, the Research Practice Partnership between J-PAL, TaRL Africa, VVOB, and the Ministry of Education co-developed a continuous professional development program to better support Catch Up teachers. This program complements the standard Catch Up program by establishing and supporting communities of practice among teachers (both within schools and between schools via WhatsApp). During regular professional development meetings, teachers engage in discussions about the Catch Up program, receive additional guidance documents and videos that align with their responsibilities throughout the academic year, and are invited to collaborate with their colleagues to participate in biweekly “mastery challenges.” In addition, the Ministry recognizes teachers’ successful participation through non-monetary incentives and issues formal letters of commendation.

Intervention (Hidden)

Intervention Start Date

2023-01-01

Intervention End Date

2024-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

The study's main outcome of interest is children's learning of foundational skills in mathematics and literacy as measured with independent one-on-one assessments.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

We use an item response theory (IRT) model to aggregate students' responses to test items to generate continuous estimates of student ability. We generate one overall score per subject and standardize the score as per the endline distribution of student ability (with a mean of zero for the control group).

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Student-level end points
- Student subskills in math and literacy (including the subdomains targeted by the program vs other subdomains of foundational numeracy)
- Student socio-emotional skills and creativity
- Student non-subject-matter cognitive outcomes
- Student attitudes towards literacy, math, school

In addition, the study collects data on intermediate outcomes at the teacher level, program take-up, and implementation fidelity.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Additional explanation regarding measures of subdomains of math and literacy.

In mathematics, we generate one continuous, standardized score for those skills targeted by the program (i.e., number recognition and procedural arithmetic) and a similar score capturing the remaining domains (e.g., geometry). In addition, we calculate the proportion of correctly answered questions by content domain, cognitive domain, and questions' curricular grade level. Finally, we also report on the proportion of students who have mastered discrete levels of ability, as per the ASER tests. In number recognition and arithmetic, we focus on whether students can at least do two-digit subtraction with borrowing; in literacy, we focus on whether students can at least read a short paragraph of about 30 words (making three mistakes or fewer).

Experimental Design

We created three experimental groups of schools for the study. We began by randomly assigning half of 182 zones to either receive the Catch Up program or not receive the program (and continue with business as usual). Those zones assigned to the Catch Up program are the same in which we sampled two government schools for data collection; in the remaining zones not assigned to the program, we sampled one school. We randomized zones within strata of four zones each. We generated these strata by grouping zones that (a) shared the same district and (b) had similar levels of average academic performance. After that, in the zones assigned to the program, we randomly assigned one school to receive the program together with the additional continuous professional development (CPD) program.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Randomization done in office by a computer

Randomization Unit

Zones: To either receive the Catch Up program or not receive the program (and continue with business as usual).
Schools: In the zones assigned to the program, one school to receive the program together with the additional continuous professional development (CPD) program or not (and continue with the usual program).

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

273 schools in 182 zones

Sample size: planned number of observations

8,025 students sampled at baseline (to be tracked over two years). Assuming a worst-case scenario of 20% attrition, the planned number of observations is between 6,420 and 8,025 students.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

91 control schools, 91 schools with the regular Catch Up intervention, and 91 schools with the Catch Up intervention and additional continuous professional development for teachers

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

0.12 standard deviations

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB