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Despite major advancements in China’s K-12 educational outcomes over the past several decades, large regional inequities in academic achievement still exist, a proximal cause of which are gaps in teaching quality. Although conventional approaches to improving teaching quality for disadvantaged populations have overall been unsuccessful in China (i.e., student relocation to better-resourced urban schools, attracting high-quality teachers to low-resource rural schools, and rural teacher training), technology-assisted instruction may play a role in bridging these gaps. This paper explores why conventional approaches to improving teaching have not been effective in rural China and then describes the potential applications of technology-assisted instruction based on the small but growing body of empirical literature evaluating such interventions in other low- and middle-income countries. The paper concludes that while other (non-tech) interventions have thus far been ineffective at raising teaching quality, China may be uniquely positioned to harness technology-assisted instruction due to a favorable ecosystem for the scaling of EdTech in rural areas, though much more experimental research is necessary to assess which approaches and technologies are most cost-effective and how to best scale them.

Authors
Prashant Loyalka
Book Publisher
Springer
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Background

The WHO recommends daily use of micronutrient powder for infants and toddlers at risk of micronutrient deficiencies in low-and-middle-income countries. China has established a micronutrient powder distribution program in many rural townships and villages, yet adherence to micronutrient powder remains suboptimal; a little is known about the behavioral inputs that may influence adherence. This study examines direct and indirect behavioral inputs in micronutrient powder adherence among caregivers in rural western China following the Integrated Behavioral Model (IBM) framework.

Methods

Cross-sectional data were collected from April to May 2019 among 958 caregivers of children aged 6 to 24 months in six counties. Data were collected on micronutrient powder adherence behavior, direct behavioral inputs (knowledge and skills, intention, salience, environmental constraints, and habits), and indirect behavioral inputs (attitudes, perceived social norms, and personal agency). Structural equation modeling (SEM) adjusted for sociodemographic covariates was used to evaluate the IBM framework.

Results

Mean micronutrient powder adherence in the previous seven days was 53.02%, and only 22.86% of caregivers consistently fed micronutrient powder from the start of micronutrient powder distribution at six months of age. The SEM model revealed small- to medium-sized effects of salience (β = 0.440, P < 0.001), intention (β = 0.374, P < 0.001), knowledge and skills (β = 0.214, P < 0.001), personal agency (st. effect = 0.172, P < 0.001), environmental constraints (β=-0.142, P < 0.001), and caregiver generation (β = 0.119, P < 0.05) on micronutrient powder adherence. Overall, 54.7% of the variance in micronutrient powder adherence was explained by the IBM framework. Salience had the largest impact on micronutrient powder adherence (Cohen’s f 2 = 0.227). Compared to parent caregivers, grandparents had a higher degree of micronutrient powder adherence on average (P < 0.001), and behavioral inputs were consistent among both parent and grandparent caregivers.

Conclusion

There is a need to improve micronutrient powder adherence among rural caregivers. The IBM framework showed a high degree of explanatory power in predicting micronutrient powder adherence behavior. The findings suggest that increased reminders from doctors regarding micronutrient powder and coaching to improve personal agency in micronutrient powder feeding may increase adherence.

Journal Publisher
BMC Public Health
Authors
Scott Rozelle

John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Building, 366 Galvez Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6015

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Senior Research Scholar, Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
lingsheng_meng_vert.jpg PhD

Lingsheng Meng is a Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions (SCCEI). His research interests are in the fields of labor economics, development economics, and public economics. So far, the bulk of his work is highly empirical and concerned with six main areas: (1) social mobility; (2) inequality; (3) gender disparities; (4) the role of government; (5) political connections; (5) higher education; (6) the US-China trade war. His work appeared in the Journal of Public Economics, the Journal of Human Resources, the Journal of Development Economics, and other peer-reviewed journals. 

Lingsheng received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland at College Park in 2010, an M.Phil. in Economics from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2004, and a B.A. in Economics and Thai from Peking University in 2002. Before joining Stanford, he taught at Tsinghua University from 2010 to 2017 and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong from 2017 to 2022.

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The event will be webcast live from this page.


In this event on December 9 at 7 a.m. PT / 10 a.m. ET, the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions (SCCEI) and the CSIS Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics present their latest Big Data China publication. The feature “Have U.S.-China Tensions Hurt American Innovation?” highlights the work of professors Ruixue Jia and Molly Roberts (University of California San Diego) and investigates the effects of U.S. policies toward China on academic collaboration between the two countries.

Trustee Chair Senior Fellow Ilaria Mazzocco will host the event, which will include an introduction by Professor Scott Rozelle of Stanford University. Professors Molly Roberts and Ruixue Jia of UC San Diego will discuss their research on the topic, followed by a discussion on the implications for U.S.-China relations and U.S. policy with distinguished panelists James Mulvenon of Peraton Labs, Deborah Seligsohn of Villanova University, and Abigail Coplin of Vassar College.  

FEATURING

Scott Rozelle 
Co-director at Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Molly Roberts 
Associate Professor of Political Science, UC San Diego
Ruixue Jia 
Associate Professor of Economics, 
UC San Diego
Abigail Coplin 
Assistant Professor of Sociology and Science, Technology and Society, 
Vassar College
James Mulvenon 
Scientific Research and Analysis, Peraton Labs
Ilaria Mazzocco 
Senior Fellow, Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics
Deborah Seligsohn 
Senior Associate (Non-resident), Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics
 
  

EVENT PARTNERS
 

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Virtual Livestream 

Abigail Coplin
Ruixue Jia
Ilaria Mazzocco
James Mulvenon
Molly Roberts
Scott Rozelle
Deborah Seligsohn
Panel Discussions
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Big Data China Annual Conference (Virtual)


The event will be broadcast live from this webpage.

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Tune in on December 13th to watch our annual conference! China experts in the policy and academic communities will discuss China’s economic policy, exit strategies for China’s Covid-19 policy, and potential pathways to improve the US-China relationship.

More details to come!


Agenda

8:00 - 8:30 am: Keynote Speech from Kenneth Lieberthal, Senior Fellow Emeritus in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings

8:30 - 9:25 am: Economic Policy in Today's China: Between Growth, Equity and Security

9:30 - 10:25 am: Covid-19 Policy: Impacts and Exit Strategies

10:30 - 11:30 am: US-China Relations: Are We Building Guardrails?


Featuring

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2022 keynote speaker: Kenneth Lieberthal, Senior Fellow Emeritus, Foreign Policy, Brookings

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Big Data China 2022 annual conference panelists.

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Conferences
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China has witnessed rapid increases in the skill premium over the last few decades. In this paper, we study the short-run effect of capital goods imports on skill premium in China. The surge in capital goods imports, which embody advanced technology, can explain the rising demand for skill in China. We exploit regional variations in capital goods import exposure stemming from initial differences in import structure and instrument for the capital goods import growth using exchange rate movements. A city at the 75th percentile of the distribution of capital goods imports growth has a higher skill premium by 5 percentage points (0.38 standard deviation) over the one at the 25th percentile. To explore the underlying mechanism, we provide firm-level evidence and show that imported capital goods are skill-complementary.

Journal Publisher
China Economic Review
Authors
Hongbin Li
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Family-level factors that characterize the home environment are critical inputs to early language and cognitive development, and potential mechanisms for improving developmental outcomes in vulnerable populations. Many studies conducted in high-income and Western settings highlight stimulating parenting, the home language environment, and parental self-efficacy as possible mechanisms of early development, though less is known about how these family-level factors impact child development in low- or middle-income settings. Even less is known about these family-level factors and early childhood development in rural China, where rates of cognitive and language delay in children aged 0–3 years are as high as 45% and 46%, respectively. Using data collected from 77 rural households with children aged 18–24 months in Southwestern China, this study examines the associations between stimulating parenting, the home language environment, and parental self-efficacy, and early cognitive and language development. The results indicate that stimulating parenting was significantly associated with cognitive, language, and overall development; the home language environment was only significantly associated with language development; and parental self-efficacy was not significantly associated with any developmental outcomes. The implications of such findings reveal mechanisms for supporting healthy child development in rural China.

Journal Publisher
Infant Behavior and Development
Authors
Tianli Feng
Scott Rozelle
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China Chats with Stanford Faculty event header by the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions

China Chats with Stanford Faculty 


Friday, December 16, 2022          5 - 6 PM Pacific Time 
Saturday, December 17, 2022    9 - 10 AM Beijing Time


From Picking Stones in Sand to Inventing Skin-like Electronics that will Change the Future of Electronics
A Conversation with Professor Zhenan Bao

What’s the secret to innovation? How do scientific findings transfer to the real world? Professor Zhenan Bao, K.K. Lee Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University and former department chair of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, sits down with Scott Rozelle, the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, to answer these questions and more. Born in China, Professor Bao moved to the U.S. during college and rose to become a leading scientist and professor of chemical engineering whose work pushes the boundaries of what’s possible in fundamental science. During the conversation, she will share how she became who she is today, her thoughts on Stanford’s culture of innovation, and her passion for mentoring the next generation of innovators. 


About the Speakers

 

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Zhenan Bao

Zhenan Bao is K.K. Lee Professor of Chemical Engineering, and by courtesy, a Professor of Chemistry and a Professor of Material Science and Engineering at Stanford University. Bao founded the Stanford Wearable Electronics Initiate (eWEAR) in 2016 and serves as the faculty director.

Prior to joining Stanford in 2004, she was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff in Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies from 1995-2004. She received her Ph.D in Chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1995.  She has over 700 refereed publications and over 100 US patents with a Google Scholar H-Index 190.
 

Bao has received notable recognition for her work in chemical engineering. Most recently, she was the inaugural recipient of the VinFuture Prize Female Innovator 2021, the ACS Chemistry of Materials Award 2022, MRS Mid-Career Award in 2021, AICHE Alpha Chi Sigma Award 2021, ACS Central Science Disruptor and Innovator Prize in 2020, and the Gibbs Medal by the Chicago session of ACS in 2020. 

Bao is a co-founder and on the Board of Directors for C3 Nano and PyrAmes, both are silicon-valley venture funded start-ups. She serves as an advising Partner for Fusion Venture Capital.
 

 

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Scott Rozelle

Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University.  For the past 30 years, he has worked on the economics of poverty reduction. Currently, his work on poverty has its full focus on human capital, including issues of rural health, nutrition and education. For the past 20 year, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Most recently, Rozelle's research focuses on the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition in China. In recognition of this work, Dr. Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards. Among them, he became a Yangtse Scholar (Changjiang Xuezhe) in Renmin University of China in 2008. In 2008 he also was awarded the Friendship Award by Premiere Wen Jiabao, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a foreigner.
 


Watch the Recording

Questions? Contact Tina Shi at shiying@stanford.edu

Scott Rozelle

Zoom Webinar

Zhenan Bao K.K. Lee Professor of Chemical Engineering Stanford University
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As digital devices like computers become more widely available in developing countries, there is a growing need to understand how the time that adolescents spend using these devices for recreational purposes such as playing video games is linked with their mental health outcomes. We measured the amount of time that adolescents in rural China spent playing video games and the association of video game time with their mental health. We collected data from primary and junior high schools in a poor, rural province in northwest China (n = 1603 students) and used the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales (DASS-21) to measure mental health symptoms. The results indicated that the average video game time was about 0.69 h per week. There was a significant association between adolescent video game time and poorer mental health. Each additional hour of playing video games also increased the chance of having moderate or above symptoms. Moreover, boys and non-left-behind children had worse mental health if they played more video games. Our study contributes to literature on the links between recreational screen time and mental health, and it sheds light on an issue addressed by recent government legislation to limit the video game time of minors in China.

Journal Publisher
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Authors
Huan Wang
Scott Rozelle
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