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Practices and Experiences of Randomized Controlled Trials in China’s Targeted Poverty Alleviations in Education
Shi Yaojiang, Zhang Linxiu, Chang Fang, Liu Han, Tang Bin, Gao Qiufeng, Guan Hongyu, Nie Jingchun, Yang Jie, Bai Yu, Li Ying, Tang Lei, Yue Ai, Ru Tong
2020, 38 (8):
1-67.
doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2020.08.001
Since the late 20th century, educational research has continued to intersect with such disciplines as economics, medicine, psychology, and computer science. As typical multidisciplinary research methods, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have gradually become a key step in making developmental policies worldwide, especially in the fields of education and social policy. Since 2003, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) have conducted nearly 300 RCTs in education in 44 countries around the world, whose empirical findings have been utilized to facilitate educational policies in developing countries such as South Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Owing to their enormous contribution to global poverty reduction, the founders of J-PAL also won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics. Although a large number of international studies have corroborated the positive roles of RCTs in promoting educational output and raising the incomes of poor groups, similar research efforts in the field of targeted poverty alleviation in education in China underestimated. This paper is a comprehensive review of literature that involves more than 30 publicly available RCTs on targeted poverty alleviation in education from 2007 to 2019. It is found that the RCTs in education conducted in poor rural China focus on four areas: teachers and education, information technology and education, nutrition & health and education, as well as early childhood development. The overarching topic discussed in these four areas is the intergenerational trap of human capital in poor rural China, followed by the exploration of more cost-effective and feasible solutions to issues existing regarding rural education. We further summarize the development of applying RCTs in promoting quality rural education in poor areas in terms of its developmental pathway, status quo, and practical experiences, so as to provide operable ways for the implementers of rural education, data-based empirical support for the decision-makers, as well as effective strategies verified by RCTs for national designers of targeted poverty alleviation policy in education. In addition, this paper also introduces the application of quasi-experimental methods to facilitate making targeted poverty alleviation policies in education in situations where RCTs may not be applicable.
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中国人文社会科学核心期刊