Annual Report 2018
Economics
EVALUATION OF THE
LEGO ZOOM LEARNING PROGRAM
A randomized experiment conducted in the city of Recife with third
and fifth grade students found considerable short-term effects of using
Lego construction blocks along with theoretical curriculum content
on cognitive measures - greater for younger children. This evidence
supports the conclusion in the literature that cognitive skills are more
malleable at younger ages.
OBJECTIVE
.
To evaluate the process of developing cognitive and non-cognitive skills of primary
school students.
RESEARCH METHOD
.
•
•
An intervention is being carried out that combines activities using Lego building blocks
with the basic school curriculum. During the activities, the students are divided into
groups and need to assume specific roles in their group. The activities combine that
curriculum content (such as concepts of mathematics, science, etc.) and also help the
students to develop cognitive skills (such as reasoning and problem solving) and so-
cio-emotional competencies (such as leadership, extroversion, etc.).
The schools that participate in the program receive Lego kits with specific instructions
for teachers and students. The teachers also receive training to implement these activi-
ties. In each classroom the students perform the activities with the Lego blocks (30 min-
ute session) during the regular school day, so it is not an extracurricular activity.
At the start of 2014, 30 municipal primary schools (from a total of 171) were selected at
random to participate in the evaluation. The sample thus represented the universe of
municipal schools in Recife, since the characteristics of the chosen schools did not differ
from those of the rest of the city's schools - they all had similar infrastructure, size, teach-
er characteristics and student proficiency.
The schools were stratified by geographic location, creating pairs based on distance. For
each pair of schools, one was chosen at random to participate in the program and the
other to act as a control.
Data were collected in two rounds - baseline (before the program) and at the end of
the school year - regarding third and fifth grade students at the 30 schools selected (15
participants and 15 in the control group), about socio-emotional components and five
cognitive skills: logical-verbal reasoning, abstract reasoning, spatial reasoning, numerical
reasoning and logical reasoning.
Data were also gathered from the results of the examination administered by Pernam-
buco State Education Secretariat - SAEPE (scores on the mathematics and language
proficiency tests and school administrative information).
The field work to collect the baseline data was performed in July and the monitoring of
the SAEPE examination was performed in December the same year. The program was
implemented in August in the participating schools, and the impact was estimated six
months after implementation.
Two different assessments were carried out, to capture the cognitive and non-cogni-
tive. For cognitive skills, five tests were administered with questions to capture the log-
ical-verbal, abstract, spatial, numerical and logical dimensions. The impact of the pro-
gram was evaluated for each of the five cognitive tests and the average score on all the
tests was computed.
To measure the socio-emotional competencies, the SENNA (Social and Emotional or
Non-cognitive Nationwide Assessment) was used, an instrument developed by the Ayr-
ton Senna Institute'.
All told, data were collected from 1,877 students in the two rounds (baseline and fol-
low-up), along with the socio-emotional scores of 1,008 students that participated in the
two rounds.
The sample of students that took the cognitive tests in both rounds (full sample), baseline
and follow-up, corresponded to 54% of the students who were enrolled in the third and
fifth grades of the schools analyzed at the start of 2014.
RESULTS
•
There was a positive impact of the program using the building blocks on the cognitive
skills of the youngest students (7 and 8 years old), but no robust effect on older children
(10 to 12 years old).
Complementarity was found between the socio-emotional competencies and the devel-
opment of cognitive skills. The children who had the highest prior socio-emotional com-
petencies obtained the greatest benefits from the investment (Lego building block pro-
gram). This result suggests that the development of socio-emotional competencies can
expand the window of opportunity in which the program can affect the cognitive skills.
The effects of the treatment were always higher for the third grade students. The data
showed a positive and significant effect of the intervention on the average cognitive
score and other specific cognitive measures (logical-verbal, logical and abstract). This
finding that the effects of the intervention were stronger on third grade than on fifth
grade students corroborates the theory that cognitive skills are more malleable at
younger ages.
The results provide evidence of significant and positive effects on extroversion and open-
ness, and a negative and significant effect on emotional stability. The effect on awareness
was also negative, but not significant.
No robust pattern could be observed for the effect of the Lego intervention on the so-
cio-emotional competencies. In contrast to the results for cognitive skills, the effects on
the socio-emotional competencies were more important for fifth grade students.
The effects of the intervention on all the cognitive skills taken together were not sig-
nificant for the third grade students, but all the signs were positive. These results are in
agreement with evidence found by other researchers that non-cognitive skills are more
malleable during the early years of life cycle.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE STUDY
•
This is the first study using a controlled randomized experiment to investigate the impact
of a program involving Lego building blocks on cognitive and non-cognitive skills.
1 The Ayrton Senna Institute is a nonprofit organization, founded in November 1994, with the objective of
providing opportunities for Brazilian children and youths to develop their potential through high-quality
education. Acting in partnership with public school systems, each year the institute benefits 1.5 million chil-
dren and youths and trains 45 thousand educators in approximately 600 municipalities in 16 Brazilian states.
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Annual Report 2018
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RESEARCHView entire presentation