Helpdesk Report: Child-to-Child Approaches in Education

Abstract

Helpdesk Query: To what extent have child-to-child approaches had an impact on improving the quality of education? Have there been any studies including randomised control trials that show the impact on learning outcomes? We know that much of the work is at kindergarten or primary level - are there any programmes that are successfully using child-to-child in Junior High School and beyond? We do not want summaries of the activity based learning (ABL) – but are keen to know the impact of the component of ABL that involves children’s own assessment and monitoring of their own, and other children’s learning. Including whether this increases motivation – and how it impacts on weaker learners or those who have long periods of absenteeism. The literature on child-to-child (CtC) approaches in developing countries is mostly related to health education. It was not always clear which age group were being targeted. It was not possible to find details of a randomised-control trial however, there are some relevant evaluation findings in section 2 of the report, including examples from Zambia, Kampala, Nepal and Kabale. Evaluations of peer-learning approaches in developed countries are presented in section 3. These provide information on secondary-and higher-level education, and on more academic subjects. Section 4 covers the wealth of literature on the benefits of self-assessment. However, nothing specific was found in the context of action-based learning. Section 5 includes information on activity-based learning