Pre-analysis plan for: The effects of remedial teaching programmes during the COVID-19 pandemic on learning growth

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools in the Netherlands were forced to close twice. While education continued online, the first evidence suggests that pupils experienced a decrease in learning growth during the school closures. Therefore, the Dutch Ministry of Education, Science and Culture provided funds to set up remedial teaching programmes to minimize this decrease in learning growth. Unique data from primary school pupils in the Netherlands on standardized test scores is combined with information about the content and participation in remedial teaching programmes. This preregistration proposes a difference-in-difference design to analyse whether participation in remedial teaching programmes minimizes the decrease in learning loss. Furthermore we will analyse who gets selected into the remedial teaching programmes, who benefits the most from the programmes and which characteristics of the programmes yield the best results.