Environment, Availability of Materials and Classroom Infrastructure (to simplify, we refer to this as “Materials and Infrastructure”), and Use of Materials. Indexes for each of these categories are generated as the average from the (recoded) responses to the set of questions under each group (see Box 2 for a summary, and Appendix 1 Table 1 for the source variables and how they map to the aggregated indexes).

|**Box 2: Summary of variables deriv**|**ed from SDIclassroom observation instrument**|
|---|---|
|**Time-on-task (Level 1)**||
|Share of Time Teaching|Share of minutes observed in which teacher is engaged in teaching<br>activities.|
|Share of Time Teaching and Learning|Share of minutes observed in which teacher is engaged in teaching<br>activities, adjusted by share of spot-check observations in which no<br>more than 6 students are off-task.|
|**Teacher practices and classroom envir**|**onment (Level 1)**|
|Good Teacher Demeanor|Average of 7 0/1 variables capturing whether teachers: moved about<br>the class; engaged with students; or projected a positive attitude.|
|Good Pedagogical Practices|Average of 13 0/1 items capturing whether teachers asked questions<br>that stimulated thinking; provided constructive feedback to students;<br>summarized the lesson; used homework as a tool; or uses local<br>information from community to make learning relevant.<sup>13</sup>|
|Classroom Environment|Average of 2 0/1 variables capturing whether pupil work and/or other<br>materials are displayed on the walls.|
|Materials and Infrastructure|Average of 7 0/1 variables capturing whether students have<br>textbooks, pens, exercise books, and/or desks; whether there are<br>reading books in the classroom; whether the classroom has a<br>blackboard that is readable and chalk; whether the classroom has<br>electricity; the state of hygiene in the classroom; the state of hygiene<br>in the classroom.|
|Use of Materials|Average of 3 0/1 variables capturing whether various materials were<br>actually used during the lesson.|
|Source: Authors. See Annex for full des|cription of variables being aggregated.|

# **_Stallings Observation System_**

In the Stallings approach, an entire lesson is observed by an enumerator who records 10 “classroom snapshots” that are evenly spaced over the lesson time. At the time of each snapshot, the enumerator visually scans the room clockwise and records what the teacher is doing, what materials are being used, and how many students are engaged in that task, as well as what the students who are not engaged in that task are doing. Teacher activities include items such as “reading,” “discussion,” “monitoring seatwork,” and “disciplining students,” while other activities the other students could be doing include “social interaction” and “uninvolved” (the full set of variables recorded are in Appendix 1 Table 2). We use these data to construct two variables. First, the Share of Time Teaching, which is the share of the 10 snapshots in which the teacher is engaged in teaching activities. Second, the share of the 10 snapshots in which the teacher is

> 13 Three of the variables in this group are not recorded as binary but rather as ordinal (e.g. 0=never, 1=once; 2=several times).  We rescale these variables to lie between 0 and 1 prior to including them in the index.

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