Participatory teaching improves learning outcomes: Evidence from a field experiment in Tanzania

While participatory teaching methods have been shown to be more successful than traditional rote learning in high-income countries, it is less clear if they can help address the learning crisis in low- and middle-income countries, where classes tend to be large and teachers have fewer resources at their disposal. Based on a field experiment with 440 teachers from 220 schools in Tanzania, we use official standardized student examinations to assess the impact of a pedagogy-centered intervention. A five-day in-service teacher training on participatory and practice-based methods improved students’ test scores 18 months later by 0.13 σ . The additional provision of laptops with a learning software allowing a random subset of teachers to refresh their content knowledge did not yield further learning gains for students. We also find limited evidence of spillover effects on indirectly exposed teachers and their students, even though knowledge-sharing activities were a key component of the program. Complementary findings from participant surveys and interviews suggest that the program was highly appreciated by different stakeholders, but that participants were unable to assess its impact along different dimensions, giving equally positive evaluations of its successful and its unsuccessful elements. • Large-scale RCT with 440 teachers and 25,000+ students in Tanzania. • Participatory teaching training increased student math scores by 0.13 σ on national exams. • Computer-assisted learning for teacher content knowledge showed no additional gains. • Only limited evidence for peer spillovers despite program design targeting knowledge-sharing. • Evidence of cross-subject spillovers to other subjects taught by same teachers.