Using Contribution Analysis for assessing the impact of an Italian L2 learning platform

Journal title RIV Rassegna Italiana di Valutazione
Author/s Alberto Vergani, Emanuela Bonini, Giulia De Bernardi
Publishing Year 2025 Issue 2025/93
Language English Pages 20 P. 9-28 File size 765 KB
DOI 10.3280/RIV2025-093002
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The article presents the main evidence of impact of the Akelius scale-up project on primary school students. Akelius is an e-learning platform for teaching Italian L2 to newly arrived students in Italy (NAI) in primary and lower secondary school and a tool for dealing with the consequences of the Ukrainian crisis and the arrival of Ukrainian families. The evaluation adopted a simplified Contribution-Analysis approach, aimed at identifying Akelius e-learning platform contribution to the increase in the proficiency in Italian as second language (ITA L2) of the primary school NAI students who used it in blended learning settings. The most relevant expected assumption-mechanism couples underpinning platform’s use have been confirmed as in force during project’s implementation and most of the external factors/rival explanations that generated ITA L2 proficiency improvement did not signif-icantly reduce Akelius Platform contribution.

Keywords: evaluation; impact; Contribution Analysis; effect; Italian as L2; learning platform.

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Alberto Vergani, Emanuela Bonini, Giulia De Bernardi, Using Contribution Analysis for assessing the impact of an Italian L2 learning platform in "RIV Rassegna Italiana di Valutazione" 93/2025, pp 9-28, DOI: 10.3280/RIV2025-093002