Can regular psychological support reduce school violence and improve students' outcomes?

Last registered on September 12, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Can regular psychological support reduce school violence and improve students' outcomes?
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012913
Initial registration date
September 06, 2024

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
September 12, 2024, 5:51 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country
Peru
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Roman Andres Zarate
Affiliation
University of Toronto
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Stephanie Majerowicz Nieto
PI Affiliation
Universidad de los Andes
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PI Name
Clémentine Van Effenterre
PI Affiliation
University of Toronto
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2019-10-01
End date
2026-04-30
Keywords
Behavior, Crime, Violence, & Conflict, Education
Additional Keywords
psychologists, school violence, student achievement, school dropout, randomized control trial, Peru
JEL code(s)
I20, I28, D04
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.
Abstract
This project will study the impact of regular psychological support on students' outcomes in Peru. The government implemented a program that randomly provided 500 out of 1,000 large schools with high reports of school violence the resources to hire a full-time psychologist to improve school climate and reduce school violence. The government equips the psychologist with specific guidelines to design strategies to reduce and prevent school violence while providing socio-emotional support to all community members, including students, teachers, and staff. We will use administrative and survey data to estimate the effects of access to a full-time psychologist on school climate, violence reports, students' social networks, learning, and non-cognitive skills. Other outcomes include teachers' pedagogical practices, school retention, dropout, and college enrollment. We will also conduct focus groups with the psychologists to gain further insights into the expected impacts of the program and the mechanisms driving the main effects.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Majerowicz Nieto, Stephanie, Clémentine Van Effenterre and Roman Andres Zarate. 2024. "Can regular psychological support reduce school violence and improve students' outcomes?." AEA RCT Registry. September 12. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12913-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Regular Psychological Support (RPS) is a program of the Ministry of Education (Minedu) of Peru, designed to improve school climate, reduce school violence, and support the socioemotional needs of all educational community members. The program was motivated by high reports of physical, psychological, and sexual violence. The intervention involves hiring a full-time professional psychologist who is permanently located at the school to work directly with staff, teachers, students, and parents, offering psychological support and designing strategies to reduce and prevent school violence.
Intervention Start Date
2019-10-01
Intervention End Date
2026-04-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
school climate, school violence, and students' social networks, including the integration of immigrants and other marginalized students.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
We will combine administrative and survey data to measure such outcomes, including a Ministry-run portal where community members can report school-violence cases, measures of school climate collected in standardized tests, and lab-in-the-field games, social networks using self-reported peers, and peer perception surveys collected by the research team.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
for students: mental health, retention, dropout, learning, and college enrollment.
for teachers: mental health, turnover, pedagogical practices, and job satisfaction.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
We will measure school retention and dropout, learning outcomes using school administrative data (SIEGE), standardized tests, administrative data on college outcomes, and teacher turnover, pedagogical practices, and job satisfaction using the Minedu human resources data.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The Minedu identified 1,000 schools targeted for the RPS program. The eligibility criteria were large schools with high reports of school violence. The schools have, on average, around 1,300 students, comprising a sample of 1.3M students, with 650K students participating in the program. The randomization was conducted in 2019 at the school level, with 500 schools receiving the treatment. This randomization was stratified by the Local Educational Management Unit (UGEL) with 69 strata.
The primary treatment is a full-time psychologist in the school during the academic year, with a virtual version in 2020 and 2021 and an in-person version from 2022 to 2024.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
By computer by the Local Educational Management Unit
Randomization Unit
School identifier.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
1000 schools
Sample size: planned number of observations
1.3M students
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
500 treated schools, with 650K students participating in the program
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Outcomes from survey data: 0.056σ. Outcomes from administrative data: dropout: 0.27pp college enrollment: 3.1 pp test scores: 0.049σ
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Toronto Research Oversight and Compliance Office — Human Research Ethics Program
IRB Approval Date
2024-02-27
IRB Approval Number
00045985
Analysis Plan