Nikhit D'Sa

Dr. Nikhit D’Sa is a developmental psychologist and applied education researcher. He studies how the relationships and settings around children living in low-resource, crisis-affected, or fragile contexts can be leveraged to support their learning and development. He is interested in identifying modifiable patterns and routines within relationships and settings that can be directly targeted through practitioner-led interventions. His research has focused on how we better align child development messages across home-school-community, cost-effectively incorporate education technology in the classroom, and systematize social and emotional learning (SEL) approaches across the school. He has also worked with teachers to understand how their occupational well-being and agency affect their instructional practices and ability to support children’s learning.

Dr. D’Sa has also pioneered a focus on practical measurement; he has led several global research initiatives focused on better incorporating the lived experience of children, caregivers, and teachers into the development of context-specific assessments and interventions. Through these efforts, he has designed and validated globally used assessments: the International Social and Emotional Learning Assessment (ISELA), the Holistic Assessment of Learning and Development Outcomes (HALDO), and the Wellbeing Assessment of Skills and Supports that Enable Teachers to Succeed (Well-being ASSETS). More recently, he has focused on the development of game-based measures of children’s SEL and formative assessments of teacher pedagogy.

In collaboration with Ministries of Education, multilateral donors, foundations, non-governmental organizations, higher-education institutions, faith-based communities, and schools, Dr. D’Sa has worked on research-practice partnerships that are grounded in an improvement science focus on iterative implementation and learning. He uses a variety of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches to help practitioners and policymakers make evidence-based decisions about interventions to benefit children.

Listen to Nikhit's Episode of Think. Pair. Share.

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