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Field
Trial Status
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Before
in_development
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After
on_going
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Field
Trial End Date
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Before
July 31, 2024
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After
July 31, 2025
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Field
Last Published
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Before
August 10, 2023 12:56 PM
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After
August 21, 2024 04:18 PM
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Field
Intervention End Date
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Before
July 31, 2024
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After
July 31, 2025
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Field
Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
-How well informed
-Registered school track
-Transition rates from elementary school to different school tracks
- School event participation
- School grades
- Predicted school track
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After
-How well informed
-Registered school track
-Transition rates from elementary school to different school tracks
- School event participation
- School grades
- Importance of school characteristics
- Predicted school track
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Field
Primary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Before
1) How well informed: We ask in baseline and endline how well parents feel informed
2) Registered school track: We ask in an endline survey at which school type parents registered their child
3) Transition rates from elementary school to different school tracks: We use administrative data that has aggregated information which share of children transitioned from an elementary school to the different school types (also by gender and citizenship)
4) School event participation: We ask whether parents participated in informational events
5) School grades: We ask for students grades in math, German and Science
5) Predicted school track: We will use Machine learning to predict the registered school track based on characteristics
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After
1) How well informed: We ask in baseline and endline how well parents feel informed
2) Registered school track: We ask in an endline survey at which school type parents registered their child
3) Transition rates from elementary school to different school tracks: We use administrative data that has aggregated information which share of children transitioned from an elementary school to the different school types (also by gender and citizenship)
4) School event participation: We ask whether parents participated in informational events
5) School grades: We ask for students grades in math, German and Science
6) We will ask and rank importance of school characteristics
7) Predicted school track: We will use Machine learning to predict the registered school track based on characteristics
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Field
Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
Schools will be randomly assigned into four groups, so either the control group or one of the three treatment arms. Each group will have one fourth of the sample. Random assignment will be stratified by government district, number of non-German students, and the pre-year tracking status of children to the gymnasium per school for the previous year.
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After
Schools will be randomly assigned into two groups, so either the control or the treatment group Each group will have one half of the sample. Random assignment will be stratified by government district and quintiles of the share of non-German students in the school year 2023.
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Field
Planned Number of Clusters
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Before
1671 Targeted schools. In case pick up from schools is too low, we pre randomized also the remaining 1088 further schools that will be contacted then.
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After
2500 Targeted schools. That received Emails to participate. The target is to have 200 participating schools for two treatment arms and 300 participating schools for three treatment arms. As of August 2024 192 target schools agreed to participate and therefore, two treatment arms are used.
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Field
Planned Number of Observations
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Before
In the schoolyear 2022/2023 in North Rhine Westphalia 155 870 students transitioned from elementary school to secondary school, around 15% of them are foreign citizens (24 115). The number of students with a migration background is higher with an average of 40 % in all public schools in the schoolyear 21/22.
Our prioritized schools have 412 069 students. Assuming that the number of students is equally distributed between grades, we expect around 100 000 students to be in the prioritized schools and to be contacted early on. Therefore we target the parents of around 100 000 elementary school students.
241,748 students are in our waiting list schools. Assuming again an even distribution of the number of students between the grades, we expect around 60 000 more students in the waiting group.
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After
In the schoolyear 2022/2023 in North Rhine Westphalia 155 870 students transitioned from elementary school to secondary school, around 15% of them are foreign citizens (24 115). The number of students with a migration background is higher with an average of 40 % in all public schools in the schoolyear 21/22.
With 200 targeted schools each with an average of around 50 students in fourth grades in schools and a take up of 20% we hope to reach a minimum of 2000 parents.
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Field
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
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Before
We have 1671 prioritized schools. Of those 413 are in the control group, 417 in treatment arm 1, 428 in treatment arm 2, and 413 schools in treatment arm 3.
In our waiting list, we have 1088 schools, 270 in the control group, 274 in the treatment arm 1, 268 in the treatment arm 2, and 276 in the treatment arm 3.
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After
At the time of randomization we have 192 schools participating. 96 schools in the control group and 96 schools in the treatment group
Schools are still able to sign up. Out of the schools that are not yet signed up, we have 1297 in the control group and 1302 in the treatment group.
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Field
Intervention (Hidden)
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Before
Parents of fourth graders are provided a free mobile application containing information about the school tracks, perspectives after each track, grading system, and support systems.
Three versions of the App will be randomly assigned to elementary schools.
1. Control group. The control group will not have access to the application
2. Parents in treatment group T1 will receive the version that provides the above-described information in German.
3. Treatment group T2 can access this information in the six most spoken foreign languages in North Rhine-Westphalia (English, Turkish, Arabic, Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian).
4. A treatment group T3 will receive additional to the multilingual information from T2 local information about schools. In this app version users have access to a map on which they can filter for school types and radiuses around them and access detailed information about contact details of the school as well as specialization and offers. The app further contains reminders for important dates like open house or information events at the secondary school.
All information displayed in the App is publicly available through either the Ministry of Education or individual school information from their homepage. The advantage of the app is to compile the information in an easy-to-use and accessible way. In case of not enough schools participating, the control group without access to any application will not be used.
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After
Parents of fourth graders are provided a free mobile application containing information about the school tracks, perspectives after each track, grading system, and support systems.
The App is set up to be able to be distributed in three versions.
1. Parents in control group will receive the version that provides the above-described information in German.
2. Parents in the treatment group can access this information in the six most spoken foreign languages in North Rhine-Westphalia (English, Turkish, Arabic, Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian) as well as local information about schools. In this app version users have access to a map on which they can filter for school types and radiuses around them and access detailed information about contact details of the school as well as specialization and offers. The app further contains reminders for important dates like open house or information events at the secondary school.
All information displayed in the App is publicly available through either the Ministry of Education or individual school information from their homepage. The advantage of the app is to compile the information in an easy-to-use and accessible way. In case of not enough schools participating, the control group without access to any application will not be used.
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Field
Secondary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
- Time, usage, ratings in App
- Aspirations
- Perceived Hurdles
- Used help
- Take up
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After
- Time, usage, ratings in App
- Aspirations
- Perceived Hurdles
- Used help
- Take up of schools
- Travel time to schools
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Field
Secondary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Before
1) Time, usage, ratings in App: We measure how much time users spend on different pages of the app, whether they click external links and whether they rate separate pages as useful
2) Aspirations: We ask parents which school track they wish for their child and can evaluate if there is differences by gender or origin
3) Perceived Hurdles: We can measure if parents are less likely to perceive hurdles in making their school track choice
4) Used help: we ask Parents whether they use any support for school matters
5) Take up: We can see if take up varies by school or parent characteristics
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After
1) Time, usage, ratings in App: We measure how much time users spend on different pages of the app, whether they click external links and whether they rate separate pages as useful
2) Aspirations: We ask parents which school track they wish for their child and can evaluate if there is differences by gender or origin
3) Perceived Hurdles: We can measure if parents are less likely to perceive hurdles in making their school track choice
4) Used help: we ask Parents whether they use any support for school matters
5) Take up: We can see if take up varies by school or parent characteristics
6) Travel time: We can evaluate for treatment group three if schools are choosen with different types of characteristics and therefore longer travel times
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