Aprender Valor: impact evaluation of a financial education programme for elementary schools

The Aprender Valor Programme consists of 2 axes of intervention: classroom material and teacher training. Classroom material encompasses packages of 6-12 classes that are set up with the financial education content presented in a transversal manner to the discipline content. Packages for Portuguese, Mathematics, and Human Sciences (Geography) are offered for all 9 grades of elementary school (students from 6 to 14 years old). Training in how to implement these transversal themes into the school teaching, personal financial education and how to apply the classroom packages are offered for both teachers and school managers and are certified by the federal university that is a partner to the programme. The target group of the programme is students from 1st to 9th grades of public elementary schools in Brazil. The intervention intends to enhance the financial literacy of students and build capacity for school teachers and managers to include financial education as a transversal theme into their teaching.

In this RCT, intervention will consist in these 2 axes: teacher training and application of the packages of classes with financial education content prior to the final data collection. The target group of the RCT are students in 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th grades in a sample of the schools that volunteered to participate in the program in 2022.

2022-04-11

2022-10-21

Final impact will be measured upon the financial literacy proficiency level of students in 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th grades.

Proficiency levels will be measured from financial literacy tests set specifically for the programme. The tests are composed of items produced based on a reference matrix that was designed for measuring financial literacy in these specific grades and results will be analysed according to the IRT (item response theory).

Proficiency levels of Mathematics and Portuguese

Proficiency levels will be measured from tests composed of items from a pool of pre tested items of the Center for Public Policies and Educational Assessment at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (CAEd/UFJF). Results will be analysed according to the IRT (item response theory).

The impact evaluation will be conducted as a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) with 2 treatment arms. The Control Group will participate in both cycles of evaluation of the study and will be able to access the Programme´s training and classroom resources once both cycles are concluded. The Treatment Group will have access to training and classroom resources at the end of the 1st evaluation cycle.
Target Sample Group are elementary public schools who have spontaneously enrolled to the Programme from November 2021 until March 2022.
Sample size is 783 schools, 52,100 students.
Recruitment of participants followed the organic process of enrolment of the Programme. Aprender Valor managers negotiated the participation of subnational networks of education – be it State or Municipal Education Secretariats. These partner networks together with Programme managers communicate the Programme to schools. Those school principals who are interested enrol their schools through the Programme´s online platform. The final sample of schools was drawn from the list of schools enrolled in the programme from November 1st, 2021 to March 2, 2022. This research used systematic sampling approach that resulted in 783 schools in 353 municipalities in 24 Brazilian states.

Not available

Randomization done in office by a computer considering the stratification by Geographic Region and Rural/Urban areas.

School

Yes

783 schools

52,100 students

Trial includes 386 schools in the control group and 397 schools in the treatment group totalling 1,042 classes of 25 students in each treatment arm.

The minimum detectable effect size is 20 points in a proficiency scale anchored at 500 points with standard deviation of 100.