Evaluation of Peru's Acompañamiento Pedagogico Multigrado (APM) Teacher Coaching Program for Multigrade Schools

The local education authority (UGEL), following guidelines established by the Ministry of Education, hires coaches to visit teachers in schools targeted by the program. The work of the coaches is divided into several stages. First, they meet with the school principal and gather information about the educational context. Then, in the same visit, the coaches attend a class session of the teacher and collect information on his or her performance in the classroom to make an initial diagnostic. Based on this diagnostic, the coach identifies the competencies that the teacher must strengthen and, together with the teacher, develops a plan of improvement. After this, the coach periodically observes class sessions carried out by the teacher at regular intervals during the year. In total, nine visits are made each year. After each classroom observation, the coach and the teacher meet to discuss the progress made with respect to the improvement plan. The coach makes monthly and quarterly reports that are sent to the UGEL and to the school principal on progress and on areas for future improvement of the teacher. At the end of the year, the coach provides a final feedback session for the teacher and collects his or her impressions of the process. Finally, the coach makes a final report for each teacher on the actions, achievements, and areas that require additional effort, with reference to the initial improvement plan.

2016-02-01

2018-11-30

Eight dimensions of teacher pedagogical skills: lesson planning, managing class time, encouraging students’ critical thinking, encouraging student participation, providing oral feedback to students, providing written feedback to students, encouraging respectful classroom relations, and managing students’ behavior. This was measured by independent classroom observers who graded from 1 (ineffective) to 4 (highly effective). In addition, student learning was another outcome of interest; this is measured in terms of students' performance on the Grade 2 and Grade 4 National Student Evaluation (ECE) exams.

At the beginning of the 2016 school year, a randomization mechanism was used for the expansion of the monolingual multigrade version of the program (Acompañamiento Pedagogico Multigrado, in Spanish, or APM). All schools that had one or two years of treatment by the end of 2015 continued to participate in APM. Monolingual multigrade schools that had not received the program yet and had low scores in the Peruvian second grade national student evaluation were randomized into treatment and control groups. Out of 6,207 eligible schools, 3,795 schools were randomly assigned to the treatment group and started receiving APM at the beginning of the 2016 school year (the Peruvian school year runs from February to November), while the remaining 2,412 schools were sorted into the control group and did not participate in any coaching program for the following years. This randomization was stratified at the region level, which is the highest level of political division in Peru, with a total of 26 regions in the country. A random sub-sample of 364 schools stratified at the region level was selected for this study (to collect data on teachers' pedagogical practices). In particular, 182 schools were randomly selected from the 3,795 treated schools, and 182 schools were randomly selected from the 2,421 control schools. Observations of teachers’ pedagogical practices were carried out in these 364 schools at the end of the 2017 school year. In addition, an effort was made to follow the teachers who worked in these 364 schools in 2016 and moved to other schools in 2017, so that observations were carried out in their new schools.

The randomization was done at the Ministry of Education on a computer. It was stratified at the region (department) level.

School

Yes

364 schools

About 600 teachers.

The sample consists of 182 schools that received teacher coaching, and the other 182 that were the control group.

Power calculations were done for the outcome of teacher pedagogical practices, which has an index from 0 to 1. The sample size was chosen to detect and MDE of 0.11, with 80% power. The 0.11 target was based on the estimated impact of another intervention (Jornada Escolar Completa) designed to change teachers' pedagogical practices.