Impact Evaluation of Connecting Classrooms Programme. Interim Report to British Council.

This report presents the interim findings from the impact evaluation of the Connecting Classrooms programme, the British Council's international education programme. The programme aims to build the capacity of teachers and school leaders to integrate a range of core skills (critical thinking and problem-solving, collaboration and communication, creativity and imagination, digital literacy, global citizenship and student leadership) into the curriculum. The evaluation was conducted through a partnership between the research consultancy, Ecorys and the Robert Owen Centre at the University of Glasgow. Findings are based on fieldwork across five countries (Nigeria, Lebanon, Bangladesh, UK and Ethiopia), chosen to capture the geographic diversity of the programme. In each country, five Connecting Classrooms schools were randomly selected to be included in the evaluation. Schools who agreed to participate were then matched with five non-Connecting Classrooms schools that were broadly similar in terms of key characteristics. Each school was then visited for one day by the research team. The visits included teacher and school leader interviews, classroom observations and student focus groups. The analysis of the data used a counterfactual approach, where outcomes in programme schools were compared against outcomes in control schools, to better understand the changes that may be attributed to the programme and to assess the ‘distance travelled’ within treatment schools. The small sample means that differences cannot be generalised to the whole population of treatment and non-treatment schools. To offset this, a theory-based and realist framework underpinned the analysis, where outcomes were compared against log-frame assumptions, and moderated through an understanding of local context. Throughout the study, a contribution analysis approach was used to understand wider drivers of change, particularly where it became evident that other factors were impacting on core skills teaching within schools