Randomised controlled trial of incentives to improve attendance at adult literacy classes

Background: Incentives have been proposed as a method to improve attendance in adult literacy classes. In the UK, several areas have piloted the use of incentives to promote attendance at adult literacy classes. To date no rigorous evaluation of this policy has been undertaken. This paper describes (as far as we are aware) the only UK‐based randomised controlled trial to evaluate the use of financial incentives in order to promote attendance in classes for adult learners.

Methods: We used a cluster‐randomised design. Twenty‐nine adult literacy classes were randomised in two groups using minimisation. Intervention group learners received £5 (US$10) for each class attended. The main outcome was class attendance; the secondary outcome was literacy scores.

Results: After allocation, one class was found to be ineligible for the study. In the 28 remaining classes there was a statistically significant reduction of about 1.5 sessions (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.28, 2.79; p = 0.019) attended by the intervention group compared with control, after adjusting for cluster size and baseline scores. The difference in reading scores between the intervention and control group, conditioned on baseline scores, was ?2.38 (with controls scoring higher than the intervention group), but this difference was not statistically significant (95% CI ?7.40 to 2.57, p = 0.33).

Conclusion: Payments to attend adult literacy classes had an adverse effect on attendance. This trial needs urgent replication, ideally with a larger incentive, before this approach is widely used by policy makers.     

An Experimental Study of Two Plans of Supervised Study in First Year Algebra

Two assumptions are used in this investigation: (1) It is assumed that visual-discrimination ability is more closely related to reading achievement than is visual-motor ability. (2) It is assumed that visual-motor-memory ability is more closely related to reading achievement than is visual-motor-copying ability. One hundred and sixty-five students in the upper elementary grades were given a battery of form perception and reading achievement tests. Pearson’s product-moment correlation and Hotelling’s t test were used in the analysis of the data. The results strongly inferred that visual-form-discrimination ability is more closely related to reading achievement than is either visual-motor-copying ability or visual-motor-memory ability. No basis has been found for inferring that visual-motor-memory ability is more closely related to reading achievement of students than is visual-motor-copying ability.     

Costing Initial Teacher Education: Do Institutions Cost their Primary Provision

Initial Teacher Education (ITE) courses operated by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have, for several years, been facing a decreasing unit of resource. Over the same period these HEIs have also been required to introduce a 'prescribed curriculum' for Initial Teacher Education and transfer a proportion of their funding to placement schools. In this context, a survey of all primary undergraduate providers in England was undertaken to determine the extent to which these changing financial conditions were formally incorporated within course design. An analysis of the responses indicates that only a minority of institutions formally cost their courses, and the factors that are included in the costing process vary significantly between institutions. The availability of the data, within institutions, leads to questions concerning the extent to which these data inform course design decisions, and the extent to which HEIs can effectively argue with resource decisions made by the funding body.