Research Associate - Remote Tutoring: Ganita Ganaka

Position: Research Associate

Name of the Project: Remote Tutoring: Ganita Ganaka

Language Requirement: Kannada, English, Hindi

Length of Commitment: 9 months

Joining Location: Bangalore, Karnataka

Sector: Education

About the Organization

The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global research center working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Anchored by a network of 194 affiliated professors at universities around the world, J-PAL conducts randomized impact evaluations to answer critical questions in the fight against poverty. J-PAL South Asia, based at the Institute for Financial Management and Research in India, leads J-PAL’s work in the South Asia region. J-PAL South Asia conducts randomized evaluations, builds partnerships for evidence-informed policymaking, and helps partners scale up effective programs. Over more than ten years of existence, J-PAL South Asia has conducted 193 ongoing and completed randomized evaluations.

About the position

J-PAL South Asia at the Institute for Financial Management and Research seeks qualified applicants for the position of Research Associate to lead impact evaluations in India. The position offers an opportunity to gain first-hand field management experience in an organization undertaking cutting-edge development research. The Research Associate will join a team of world-class researchers from leading universities in the world and will gain first-hand experience implementing randomized control trials in an organization undertaking cutting-edge development research. Read more about our work and projects here.

Project Specific Details:

This project is a scale-up of a previously evaluated study tested across multiple countries by J-PAL invited researcher Noam Angrist and colleagues (Angrist, Bergman, Matsheng 2022; Angrist et al 2023). The state government of Karnataka plans to scale up a remote tailored instruction approach for grades 3-5. The government’s “Ganitha Ganaka” programme was launched based on the evidence supporting a tailored instruction approach that uses phones to connect high-quality instruction and tutoring with students and parents. Within the 2024-25 academic year, the government aims to reach approximately 456,000 students across 93 educationally low-performing administrative blocks. As the government intends to implement this programme at a large scale this year, we aim to embed quick process research activities that will support the government (a) with actionable insights on optimising programme implementation as they seek to achieve scale, and (b) set up large-scale monitoring systems within the government to effectively monitor and enable different levels of the education system to use of programme data for feedback and course correction.

The RA will be responsible for a series of primary data collection exercises. The RA will work with the Research Manager and Principal Investigators, who will guide and supervise them in various tasks. The PIs for this Project are Noam Angrist (University of Oxford) and Sharnic Djaker (University of Oxford).

Key Responsibilities

• Research Associates work closely with academic researchers and other field staff to perform a variety tasks including, but not limited to:
• Designing survey questionnaires, conducting qualitative research, running pilot exercises, refining study design and survey instruments
• Managing teams: Recruit, train, and supervise both field-based and data operations teams consisting of project assistants, field managers, field-based surveyors, data entry operators and other field and office staff
• Supervising data collection and data entry to ensure good data quality during both these phases
• Co-ordinating with the Administrative and Finance team on a variety of tasks related to field staff contracting and payments
• Overseeing the implementation of the evaluation in accordance to the research design in association with our partner organization
• Ensuring that the project complies with IRB and JPAL data collection and security protocols with the help of the Research Manager
• Maintaining relationship with partner organizations at both headquarters and field levels
• Assisting with data cleaning and preliminary data analysis
• Assisting in preparation of documents and presentations for donor reporting as well as dissemination activities
• Reporting to PIs on all of the above mentioned activities
• Any other task as assigned by the Research Manager, AD Research or ED

Desired Qualifications

• A Bachelor's/Master’s degree in economics, social sciences, public policy, education or related fields
• Previous experience in development research (and the education sector) preferred
• Excellent management and organizational skills along with strong quantitative skills
• Fluency and excellent communication skills in English
• Some conversational-level skills in regional languages such as Hindi, Kannada.
• Flexible, self-motivating, able to manage multiple tasks efficiently, and team player
• Demonstrated ability to manage high-level relationships with partner organizations
• Knowledge of Stata (strongly preferred) or other data analysis software is preferred
• Familiarity with randomized controlled trials/clinical trials/quasi-experiments/A/B tests preferred
• Ability to deal with unstructured and changing environments
• Ability to work independently and in rural field locations

Note on Work Authorizations:

Candidates must have work authorization to work in India.

You are able to submit your application before your references complete their recommendation letters; however, you must include their contact information before submitting your application. Given the volume of applications received, only short-listed candidates will be contacted for an interview.