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The Impact of Working-Memory Training on Children’s Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills
Working-memory (WM) capacity is a key component of a wide range of cognitive and noncognitive skills—such as fluid IQ, math, reading, and inhibitory control—but can WM training improve these skills? Here, we examine the causal impact of WM training embedded in regular school teaching, using a randomized educational intervention with 6–7-year-old children. We find substantial gains in WM capacity and document positive spillover effects on geometry, fluid IQ, and inhibitory control. Three years later, treated children are 16 percentage points more likely to enter an advanced secondary school track.
Violent Conflict and Behavior: A Field Experiment in Burundi
We use a series of field experiments in rural Burundi to examine the impact of exposure to conflict on social, risk, and time preferences. We find that conflict affects behavior: individuals exposed to violence display more altruistic behavior towards their neighbors, are more risk-seeking, and have higher discount rates. Large adverse shocks can thus alter savings and investments decisions, and potentially have long-run consequences—even if the shocks themselves are temporary.
Prognostic Accuracy of Presepsis and Intrasepsis Characteristics for Prediction of Cardiovascular Events After a Sepsis Hospitalization
Across two large healthcare systems, intrasepsis factors improved postsepsis cardiovascular risk prediction as compared with presepsis cardiovascular risk profiles. Further exploration of sepsis factors that contribute to postsepsis cardiovascular events is warranted for improved mechanistic and predictive models.
Not Too Late: Improving Academic Outcomes among Adolescents
Improving academic outcomes for economically disadvantaged students has proven challenging, particularly for children at older ages. We present two large-scale randomized controlled trials of a high-dosage tutoring program delivered to secondary school students in Chicago. One innovation is to use paraprofessional tutors to hold down cost, thereby increasing scalability. Participating in math tutoring increases math test scores by 0.18 to 0.40 standard deviations, and increases math and nonmath course grades. These effects persist into future years. The data are consistent with increased personalization of instruction as a mechanism. The benefit-cost ratio is comparable to many successful early childhood programs.
Discussion
Nonstandard Errors
In statistics, samples are drawn from a population in a data‐generating process (DGP). Standard errors measure the uncertainty in estimates of population parameters. In science, evidence is generated to test hypotheses in an evidence‐generating process (EGP). We claim that EGP variation across researchers adds uncertainty—nonstandard errors (NSEs). We study NSEs by letting 164 teams test the same hypotheses on the same data. NSEs turn out to be sizable, but smaller for more reproducible or higher rated research. Adding peer‐review stages reduces NSEs. We further find that this type of uncertainty is underestimated by participants.