Learning Curve: Progress in the Replication Crisis
AEA Papers and Proceedings
vol. 113,
May 2023
(pp. 482-88)
Abstract
We present detailed monitoring data across a five-country randomized trial of phone-based targeted tutoring—one of the largest multicountry replication efforts in education to date. We study an approach shown to work in Botswana and replicated in India, Kenya, Nepal, the Philippines, and Uganda. While the existing literature often finds diminishing effects as proof-of-concept studies are replicated and scaled, we find the opposite: implementation fidelity (the degree of targeted educational instruction) improves across replications and over time. This demonstrates that replication is not intractable; rather, equipped with mechanisms to learn from experience, organizational "learning curves" can enable effective replication and scale-up.Citation
Angrist, Noam, Claire Cullen, Micheal Ainomugisha, Sai Pramod Bathena, Peter Bergman, Colin Crossley, Thato Letsomo, Moitshepi Matsheng, Rene Marlon Panti, Shwetlena Sabarwal, and Tim Sullivan. 2023. "Learning Curve: Progress in the Replication Crisis." AEA Papers and Proceedings, 113: 482-88. DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20231009Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- I21 Analysis of Education
- I28 Education: Government Policy
- O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration