Assessing and intervening teachers' beliefs on the socioemotional and cognitive development of their students

Last registered on April 19, 2018

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Assessing and intervening teachers' beliefs on the socioemotional and cognitive development of their students

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0002906

Initial registration date

April 17, 2018

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

April 19, 2018, 4:19 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

Brazil

Region

Rio de Janeiro, RJ

Primary Investigator

Name

Vladimir Ponczek

Affiliation

FGV

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Natália Marchi

PI Affiliation

FGV

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Gabriela Fonseca

PI Affiliation

FGV

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Cristine Pinto

PI Affiliation

FGV

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2017-11-01

End date

2019-12-15

Keywords

Education

Additional Keywords

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Abstract

This project has two main goals: (i) to create and validate an instrument capable of measuring the subjective beliefs and expectations that teachers have about the non-cognitive development of their students; (ii) through a random trial create an intervention that informs a group of teachers about the importance of socioemotional skills in the development and future academic and professional success of students. In this way, we intend to evaluate if we are able to change the pedagogical practices adopted in classroom, the appreciation that teachers give to non-cognitive abilities and also, if these potential changes are reflected in beneficial cognitive and non-cognitive results in students of treated teachers. The data for this evaluation comes from another experiment: "Assessing the Impact of" Compass Program "on children's Socio-Emotional and Academic Skills in Brazil" that takes place in Rio de Janeiro - Brazil, with Elementary schools. During the year of 2018 there will be two data collections with teachers and students, one at the beginning and another at the end of the school year. Teachers will answer our instrument created under goal (i), and children will go through social-emotional or cognitive tasks at two points in time. Between the two research fields, randomly selected teachers will receive text messages with informative content about socioemotional skills and their importance. The other half of teachers will receive text messages with educational content unrelated to socioemotional skills.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Fonseca, Gabriela et al. 2018. "Assessing and intervening teachers' beliefs on the socioemotional and cognitive development of their students." AEA RCT Registry. April 19. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2906-1.0

Former Citation

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date

2018-05-15

Intervention End Date

2018-11-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Teacher's beliefs and students cognitive and non cognitive development

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Data for this evaluation comes from another experiment: "Assessing the Impact of" Compass Program" on children's Socio-Emotional and Academic Skills in Brazil" that takes place in Rio de Janeiro - Brazil, with Elementary schools. In this evaluation 42 (out of 84) schools were randomly selected to teach socioemotional lessons (SEL) to their students, while the other 42 were kept as a comparison group. During the year of 2018 we added to this already existing RCT the present study. Starting from this two existing groups of schools (with SEL and without SEL) we randomly selected half of each of this groups to receive an addicional intervention. This additional intervention consists of informative text messages that will be sent to teachers in the attempt to make them aware of the importance of students' socioemotional develoment. During the year there will be two data collections with teachers and students, one at the beginning and another at the end of the school year. Teachers will answer an instrument created for the purpose of understanding what pedagogical practices teachers perform in classroom and what are teacher's beliefs on the relative importance of socioemotional skills in their students' lives. Also, in both fields children will go through socioemotional and cognitive tasks. The other half of teachers - the ones that weren't selected to receive the informative text messages- will receive text messages with educational content unrelated to socioemotional skills. With such design we will be able to identify whether this simple intervention is able to change teacher's beliefs about socioemotional skills and if this potential change is reflected in different pedagogical practices. Additionaly, we will be able to test the intervention's effects on students' outcomes.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Randomization done in office by a computer

Randomization Unit

School

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

84 schools

Sample size: planned number of observations

168 teachers

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

42 treated schools with a total of 84 treated teachers (text messages about socioemotional skills)
42 control schools with a total of 84 control teachers (text messages with educational content unrelated to socioemotional skills)

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB