Exploratory Behavior Scale (EBS)
Category: Student Learning
A perplexing pattern has been observed in the intervention literature: although impacts on children’s skills often fade, some interventions still produce long-run impacts on adult outcomes. Existing developmental theory does not provide a straightforward explanation. This “fadeoutemergence paradox” spotlights our limited understanding of how early skill gains shape long-run trajectories. In part one of this paper, we reviewed the literature on childhood interventions and adult outcomes, including theory, areas of complexity, and sources of confusion. In part two, we presented a random-effects meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials that measured initial impacts on child skills and long-run impacts on adult outcomes. We identified 29 interventions reporting 179 posttest effects and 497 adult effects for 26,076 participants. On average, impacts on child skills faded in the two years after interventions ended, but programs nonetheless generated small effects on adult outcomes (.04 SD, 95% PI [.00, .09]). Strikingly, adult impacts were similar in magnitude to the faded medium-term effects, inconsistent with common conceptions of the “fadeout-emergence paradox.” We observed some, albeit weak, correspondence between initial impacts and long-run impacts. Our work illustrates gaps in our understanding of how children’s skills shape adult outcomes and suggests that developmental theories should accommodate fadeout followed by long-run impacts.
Keywords
educational interventions, long-run effects, fadeout, meta-analysis, developmental theory
Education level
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/dtk5-ds56
