The effect of non-monetary incentives on teachers´ performance and educational outcomes: evidence from a Clustered RCT in Peruvian schools

Last registered on March 14, 2023

Pre-Trial

General Information

Title

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0010705

Initial registration date

March 01, 2023

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

March 13, 2023, 8:34 AM EDT

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

Last updated

March 14, 2023, 8:22 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country

Peru

Region

Latin America

Primary Investigator

Name

Alessandro Castagnetti

Affiliation

LIUC University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Lajos Kossuth

PI Affiliation

CEMFI

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2022-01-01

End date

2023-08-01

Keywords

Behavior, Education, Firms & Productivity

Additional Keywords

Non-monetary incentives, job performance, motivation, RCT

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

Developing countries have experienced only slight improvements in the learning outcomes
of students in recent years. The World Bank (2018) notes that one reason driving this
issue is that teachers are not effective because they lack both skills and motivation. While
upgrading teachers skills might not be always feasible (due to a lack of resources and/or
state capacity), cost-effective campaigns to improve their motivation might prove crucial.
We conduct a Clustered Randomized Control Trial in Peruvian public schools to test whether
the announcement of a non-monetary award offered to teachers based on their performance
shows any effect over it and subsequently over the learning outcomes of students.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Castagnetti, Alessandro and Lajos Kossuth. 2023. "The effect of non-monetary incentives on teachers´ performance and educational outcomes: evidence from a Clustered RCT in Peruvian schools." AEA RCT Registry. March 14. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.10705-1.1

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The intervention consists of the announcement of a non-monetary incentive scheme for those teachers who reach a certain threshold of performance. The intervention is implemented in the treated schools, whereas in the control ones no intervention is implemented.

Intervention Start Date

2022-03-01

Intervention End Date

2023-06-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Teachers' performance in the classroom.
Students school achievements.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Teachers' performance will be assessed using the same evaluation methodology implemented in the Monitoring of School Practices (MPE) program. That is, using the same indicators and methodologies as the annual MPE. The average value of this assessment will be analyzed as well as the relevant subsections identified by MPE. Students achievements are measured as their outcomes in mathematics and reading comprehension.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

1. Mediating effect of motivation.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

At the time teachers are being monitored, monitors will ask teachers to complete a survey which captures their perceptions about their role of teachers, their motivation to carry out this profession and their life satisfaction. This questionnaire is relevant since it will capture a key mechanism through which the intervention might affect teachers' performance.

Experimental Design

We will conduct a Randomized Control Trial (RCT) clustered at the school level and stratified
by whether they are located in an urban or rural setting. We only include
primary schools in our study because of two main reasons: i) the logistical and methodological
infeasibility of considering all types of schools; ii) the advantage that teachers at primary schools
teach all subjects/topics to children. Moreover, we only consider those schools that in 2021 had 5 or more teachers.

The final universe of potential units of analysis consists of
19,028 schools, 140 of which are randomized to either treatment or control status (around 1400
teachers).
Schools in the treatment group will receive the announcement of the non-monetary incen-
tive scheme, ‘Destaca Docente’, at the beginning of the academic year. Teachers will be then
evaluated with the MPE tool and, afterwards, if they achieve a score of over 2.7, the will receive
the promised award. Teachers in schools of the control group, on the other hand, will only be
evaluated with the MPE tool.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

The universe of schools in Peru reaches 171,061 institutions. In the study, only primary schools were included: 47,092 institutions (27.36% of the total). The decision to focus on this subset was based on two main reasons:
1. The logistical and methodological infeasibility of considering all types of schools.
2. The advantage that teachers at primary schools teach all subjects/topics to children.
Finally, only primary schools with more than five teachers were included in the study. This guarantees to have within variation in the schools. Therefore, the final sample universe consisted of 19,028 schools, 140 of which were selected at random stratified by urban/rural status.
The randomization was done in office via a computer software.

Randomization Unit

Schools

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

140 Schools

Sample size: planned number of observations

Around 1400 teachers.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

70 Schools in the treatment and 70 schools in the control.
Thus, around 700 teachers in each treatment arm.
Similarly, there will be around 17.500 students per treatment arm.

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

The number of schools (and therefore teachers) to be included in the RCT was determined through power calculations which considered the following details: The average number of teachers in a school (on average estimated to be 10). Pre-treatment baseline values such as mean of teachers’ performance (2.4 points out of 4) and standard deviation of around 0.35. Estimated inter cluster correlation (0.20) based on previous measures of the MPE. Standard thresholds of alpha=0.05 and beta=0.80. Miminum detectable effect of 15% increase which is a reasonable effect size and consistent with relatively similar interventions, and its effect sizes, found in the literature. Thus, the estimated number of schools per treatment arm is N=55. However, given potential attrition issues as well as differences in the point estimates assumed, conservatively we have advised for a 20% increase in the number of schools per treatment arm. As a consequence of the power analysis and these final considerations, each condition features 70 schools

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB