Click to read more? EdTech and foundational English Literacy in South Africa

Megan Borole (), Maxine Schaefer (), Heleen Hofmeyr () and Bruce McDougall ()
Additional contact information
Megan Borole: Firdale Consulting
Maxine Schaefer: Click Learning
Heleen Hofmeyr: Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University
Bruce McDougall: Firdale Consulting

No 03/2024, Working Papers from Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics

Abstract: We explore the relationship between literacy and the time learners spend using individualised educational technology for South African primary school learners in 2019 and 2022. Cross-sectional analysis of the data shows that learners' target annual time (18 hours) is associated with a 0.14 standard deviation increase in Grade 3 literacy scores in 2019 and a 0.42 standard deviation increase in 2022. Similar effect sizes were found for other grades. These effect sizes are large for education interventions. The programme is relatively cost-effective and has demonstrated scalability. Our results are important in the context of South Africa's literacy crisis and the paucity of educational technology evaluations.

Keywords: Literacy; educational technology; early grade reading; South Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 I21 I24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ekon.sun.ac.za/wpapers/2024/wp032024/wp032024.pdf First version, 2024 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers385

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Melt van Schoor ().