Abstract
Recently there has been a significant shift towards better understanding the relative cost-effectiveness of education interventions, particularly those being implemented in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Work to group similar interventions has added significant value in understanding the types of programmes and forms of technology that are likely to deliver cost-effective impact on learning outcomes. However, this framing also relies on assumptions that programmes grouped within the same category will have similar cost-effectiveness and be broadly similar in the way that they are being implemented to deliver impact on learning. Furthermore, this view misses the key issue that individual features of programmes and how they are contextually implemented are consequential to their cost-effectiveness. One such category which has gained significant attention in recent years is that of Digital Personalised Learning (DPL). While there are many interventions categorised as offering DPL in some form, it is a difficult category to define owing to the variety of mechanisms through which learning can be personalised. As a result, it can be problematic to assume that the features and cost-effectiveness of DPL programmes can always be compared and grouped, making it difficult to make conclusions around the cost-effectiveness of DPL as a category of interventions. This lack of consistency is emphasised by the fact there is not a universally agreed definition for what constitutes DPL. Therefore, for the purposes of understanding the cost-effectiveness of DPL programmes, it may be less useful to categorise and assume all interventions with a personalisation element as being comparable. In this paper, we use three examples of DPL interventions being implemented in Kenya to undertake an in-depth analysis of their features and their implications for cost-effectiveness. Through analysing the key differences between the implementation models, costs, and impact on learning outcomes delivered by these programmes, this paper emphasises significant variance between how DPL programmes are achieving impact. This paper argues that superficial comparisons of cost-effectiveness might miss important information for decision-makers and educators aiming to compare DPL options. As a result of these disparities, DPL interventions should not be conceptualised as its own discrete category when illustrating the cost-effectiveness of groups of interventions.
Authors and contributors
Anonymised for Peer Review (Author)
Citation
Anonymised for Peer Review. (2025). Cost-effectiveness of digital personalised learning: Three interventions from Kenya [Preprint]. EdTech Hub. https://doi.org/10.53832/edtechhub.1078
Link to this record
https://docs.edtechhub.org/lib/HJ77W2M5
Key themes
- Accountability
- Education financing
- Digital personalised learning
Type
- Journal Article
