Exploring Heterogeneity Across Multiple Cluster Randomized Trials in Early Childhood: Evidence on intervention implementation and fadeout

Tyler Watts will present data from four cluster randomized trials that evaluated the scale up of the Building Blocks preschool mathematics curriculum. These trials were run in five different cities, producing a range of effects on measures of children's mathematics achievement. Watts will discuss recent efforts to examine school-level factors that explain the heterogeneity in treatment impacts at the end of the preschool year. He will also present results from exploratory models that examine whether school and child characteristics explain heterogeneity in patterns of fadeout through the end of the kindergarten. These results carry implications for efforts to successfully scale empirically-evaluated curricula, as well as ongoing discussion regarding the fadeout and persistence of early childhood intervention impacts.

Watts is an assistant professor of developmental psychology in the Department of Human Development at Teachers College, Columbia University. He seeks to understand whether interventions designed to boost children's early cognitive and behavioral skills will make long-lasting changes on developmental outcomes. Watts received his Ph.D. in education from the University of California, Irvine, in 2017.