Monica Bhatt
Senior Research Director
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Monica P. Bhatt is a Senior Research Director for the University of Chicago Crime Lab and Education Lab. In this role, Dr. Bhatt serves as the principal investigator on a number of applied research studies, including those focused on high-dosage tutoring; alleviating mental health for young women; and READI Chicago, an initiative to reduce gun violence involvement among those at highest risk. Her current work focuses on leading the Personalized Learning Initiative, a multi-site randomized controlled trial of over 16,000 students designed to understand how we can scale the benefits of high-dosage tutoring to reach more students in an equitable manner. Her work has been published in high impact journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Review, and Science and has been cited in media outlets such as the New York Times, National Public Radio, and the Chicago Tribune.
Prior to coming to the Crime Lab and Education Lab, she worked as a researcher at the American Institutes for Research where she led projects related to college access and retention, teacher quality, school finance, and school accountability policy. She is a former Fulbright Scholar and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in Education Policy and an M.P.P. and B.A. in Public Policy from Vanderbilt University.
NBER Working Paper: Can Technology Facilitate Scale? Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation of High Dosage Tutoring
This paper outlines results from the Education Lab’s study of a high-dosage tutoring model–what we call “Saga Technology”–which found that substituting some tutor time with educational technology can reduce costs by one-third and halve the number of tutors needed without compromising effectiveness.
Realizing the Promise of High Dosage Tutoring at Scale: Preliminary Evidence for the Field
This technical report outlines preliminary results from the Personalized Learning Initiative showing that high dosage tutoring can be scaled and can work–even when delivered in the aftermath of the pandemic and in diverse academic settings.
Randomized evaluation of a school-based, trauma-informed group intervention for young women in Chicago
Science Advances journal publication.
Working on Womanhood Research Brief
Research brief for the Working on Womanhood project.
Personalized Learning Initiative
The Personalized Learning Initiative is a moonshot to overcome pandemic learning loss and aims to bring high-dosage tutoring to students nationwide.
Personalized Learning Initiative: Tutor Corps Evaluation
The University of Chicago Education Lab is partnering with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to scale personalized tutoring in the wake of the pandemic.
Unlocking Literacy Potential: Bridging the Gap for High School Readers
In 2020, the Education Lab partnered with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to rigorously design, test, and scale the impact of its Structured Literacy program on students’ reading proficiency levels.
Coaching with Computer-Assisted Learning (CAL)
The Education Lab partnered with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to pilot the Coaching with CAL program, which offers high-dosage tutoring to students through education technology platforms.
Latest Updates
NAEP scores: It’s worse than you think but there is a solution
The latest NAEP scores are devastating—but as bad as they are, the real problem is even bigger. Test scores have been declining since 2013 and then got exponentially worse during the pandemic. What is going on?
Inside the Lab: Using tutoring to reverse pandemic-era learning loss
The University of Chicago goes inside the Education Lab to learn how experts are working with public school districts nationwide to tackle learning loss and scale solutions to set students up for future success.
Video: Can technology facilitate scale? In conversation with Dr. Monica Bhatt
Dr. Monica Bhatt speaks with the Australian Network for Quality Digital Education about the importance of leveraging edtech in the pursuit of educational equity. This discussion was facilitated by Dr. Kelly Stephens, Director of Edtech and Education Policy at the UTS Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion.
