Long-Term Effects of New Hope on Childrens Academic Achievement and Achievement Motivation. An MDRC Working Paper

摘要

In this report, we examine effects of the New Hope Project on childrens academic achievement and achievement motivation eight years after random assignment (five years after the program ended) by comparing program-group and control-group children. Specifically, experimental impacts on parents and teachers ratings of academic skills and childrens self-reports of their achievement motivation are presented. (An impact is the difference between the program-group mean and the control-group mean on a given measure. It represents the size of the programs effect.) Because past reports have noted some differences in program effects by gender and age, impacts for the full sample and for subgroups based on gender and age are re-ported. Subgroups based on parents initial barriers to employment are also examined because New Hope had the strongest impacts on parent employment and poverty reduction for parents with one barrier compared to those with no barriers or more than one barrier. We begin with an overview of major findings and continue with a more in-depth ex-amination of impacts on academic achievement and achievement motivation. We discuss trends in these impacts over time, the possible reasons for the observed impacts, and their implications for public policy.