Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Early Reading Programs: A Demonstration With Recommendations for Future Research

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Penn collection
Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education
Degree type
Discipline
Subject
early childhood
literacy
Economics
Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research
Education Economics
Funder
Grant number
License
Copyright date
Distributor
Related resources
Author
Hollands, Fiona
Kieffer, Michael J.
Shand, Robert
Pan, Yilin
Cheng, Henan
Levin, Henry M.
Contributor
Abstract

We review the value of cost-effectiveness analysis for evaluation and decision making with respect to educational programs and discuss its application to early reading interventions. We describe the conditions for a rigorous cost-effectiveness analysis and illustrate the challenges of applying the method in practice, providing examples of programs for which we have estimated costs, but find effectiveness data lacking in comparability. We provide a demonstration of how cost-effectiveness analysis can be applied to two early reading programs: the Wilson Reading System and Corrective Reading. We use existing effectiveness data from an experimental evaluation in which the programs were implemented under similar conditions and the use of common outcomes measures for both programs yielded data that are comparable. We combine these data with cost data we collected using the ingredients method to calculate cost-effectiveness ratios for the alphabetics domain. A complete picture of the relative cost-effectiveness of each program could be provided if effectiveness metrics were available for fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. We highlight the obstacles to applying cost-effectiveness analysis more frequently and recommend strategies for improving the availability of the requisite data.

Advisor
Date Range for Data Collection (Start Date)
Date Range for Data Collection (End Date)
Digital Object Identifier
Series name and number
Publication date
2016-01-14
Journal title
Volume number
Issue number
Publisher
Publisher DOI
Journal Issue
Comments
Recommended citation
Collection