Reproducibility package for Improving Student Outcomes Through Adaptive Learning Platforms: Experimental Evidence From The Dominican Republic

Most students in developing countries receive grade-level instruction despite lacking prerequisite skills, a mismatch that widens learning gaps as students progress. We conducted a randomized controlled trial across 38 classrooms and 1,333 night-grade students in the Dominican Republic, randomly assigning classrooms to one of three arms: computer-adaptive learning (CAL) software replacing two of seven weekly mathematics hours, CAL combined with small-group tutoring, or a business-as-usual control. CAL improved test scores by 0.29-0.31 standard deviations over 6 months, among the larger effects documented for education technology interventions in developing countries. We find no evidence that adding small-group tutoring enhanced these benefits; if anything, classrooms assigned to both interventions showed smaller gains than those receiving CAL alone, though this difference is not statistically significant. We document implementation challenges and explore potential mechanisms, showing that tutoring classrooms exhibited reduced engagement with the CAL platform. These results suggest computer-adaptive learning software can be effectively integrated into classroom instruction to improve learning at scale, but that combining multiple interventions is not guaranteed to produce additive benefits and may instead generate unintended behavioral responses that offset their effectiveness.