Research On The Effect Of Intervention To Improve The Academic Performance Of Poor Rural Primary School Students

Solving worldwide poverty is an important issue for development.In view of the widespread poverty problem,human capital theory believes that the low and insufficient human capital investment is the root of poverty,investment in human capital must be increased.China,with its rapid economic development,also faces the challenge of human capital.Although China has implemented nine-year compulsory education policy for many years,which solved the problem of the student's enrollment,it still needs to improve quality of teaching especially in students' academic performance.Experimental research in the fields of human capital has provided effective references for related research in China.In terms of improving the educational output in poor rural areas,field study researchers have worked on randomized intervention in the fields of human capital such as nutrition,health,educational incentives,educational technology,etc.But in each experimental research,conclusions are not consistent.And according to some poor situations in rural Chinese primary school students,whether or not can these interventions help to improve and have a significant positive impact on their educational outcomes,we do not clearly know about it.Therefore,this study relies on the first-hand sample data sets obtained from 2008-2015 by the Center of Educational Experimental in Economics(CEEE)of Shaanxi Normal University,using the pooled-data analysis method to explore the impact of each interventions in nutrition(anemia reduction),information(health education),vision care(eyesight correction),teacher incentive and computer assistant learning intervention on the academic performance of primary school students in Chinese poor rural areas.Mathematics test scores as an outcome were eligible for inclusion,and analysis included 20 interventions from 12 projects targeting 37,950 students in 1085 rural Chinese primary schools.OLS regressions and heterogeneity analysis were used with fixed effect to measure the average treatment effects and heterogeneity.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)The four types of interventions:nutrition,vision care,teacher incentive,and computer assistant learning all have a positive and significant impact on students' academic performance,while health information interventions not have observable impacts.(2)Computer assistant learning intervention not only have stably positive impact on students 'academic performance,but also not affected by the students' own family economic conditions.It becomes one of the most effectiveness and fairness treatment.(3)Students' performance,gender factors,boarding or not in school,parents' education level,and family economic conditions have become important heterogeneous effect factors.(4)All the five types of interventions have more significant impacts on students who originally ranked in the top 50%,appear "Matthew Effect".Nutrition and information interventions have "Crowding Out Effect" on students with better family conditions.Therefore,the policy recommendations are as follows:(1)Pay attention to children's nutrition and health issues,especially the negative impact of anemia.Scientific diet and interventions should take for children's nutrition and health.(2)Strengthen the protection and monitoring of students' vision problem in poor rural areas.Try to help the poor eyesight students to wear suitable glasses timely.(3)Improve the incentive mechanism of teachers in poor rural areas,implement the incentive scheme of performance pay,and full use of the incentive function of salary.(4)Promote the application of computer assistant learning in poor rural schools and encourage students to use it in their spare time.(5)When implement the interventions,"Matthew Effect" or"Crowding Out Effect" should be avoided.