Scaling Up Educational Interventions

Some educational interventions successfully “scale up.” Others do not. Little— arguably, almost nothing—is known about the factors that lead to successful scaling up. The goal of this chapter is to identify a number of these factors through a disciplined and methodologically rigorous approach. The difficulties associated with scaling up can broadly be summarized as falling into two classes: (1) difficulties associated with interventions (i.e., is a particular program suitable for upscaling?) and (2) difficulties associated with dissemination of the developed intervention (i.e., what geographical, economical, and human contexts are suitable for upscaling?). There has not been a systematic review of the available knowledge, either at the level of theory or at the level of empirical evaluation of hypotheses and observations on the process of upscaling. This chapter attempts to carry out a systematic analysis of some of the factors contributing to scalability of a given educational program. The chapter does not claim to address all factors. However, it does attempt to capture and characterize at least some of the critical dimensions of scalability.