The effectiveness of Peer-led and Trainer-led e-Learning Leadership Training for School Leaders: A Randomized Experiment in Rwanda

This paper studies the effectiveness of two different conditions of offering an e-learning leadership training for school leaders in Rwanda in a randomised controlled trial. We distinguish a trainer-led condition in which a trainer guides the school leader, and a peer-led condition that includes peer discussions among school leaders to facilitate the learning process. We look at multiple outcomes, such as participation rates and exam scores, as well as leadership skills, motivation and satisfaction of school leaders. Results indicate no significant difference between the two groups for most outcomes. For two modules, we find that peer-led school leaders perform significantly higher on both formative and summative assessments. Furthermore, it is observed that trainer-led school leaders self-report fewer e-learning barriers, and higher overall leadership skills. However, this self-reported observation was not confirmed by the teachers from their schools, who also assessed their school leader’s leadership skills. The results imply that that the peer-led condition outperformed the trainer-led condition, on all objective outcome measures. Given the much lower costs for organising an online leadership training in a peer-led condition, we can conclude that it does not seem to be worth it to make this e-learning training trainer-led.