The impact of after-school child sponsorship in the Philippines: Pre-analysis plan

Last registered on March 20, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The impact of after-school child sponsorship in the Philippines: Pre-analysis plan
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0013213
Initial registration date
March 19, 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
March 19, 2024, 5:41 PM EDT

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

Last updated
March 20, 2024, 8:02 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country
Philippines
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Mark Treurniet
Affiliation
University of Groningen
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Jeffrey R. Bloem
PI Affiliation
International Food Policy Research Institute
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2023-05-16
End date
2027-12-31
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
child sponsorship, learning outcomes
JEL code(s)
I25, O15, D04
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Child sponsorship is a popular way of supporting children in low- and middle-income countries around the world. We study the impact of after-school child sponsorship on learning outcomes in the Philippines. For each the centers in our study, the child sponsorship organization identifies eligible children from grades 3-4, from which we will randomly select children for child sponsorship. We collect household and child demographics at baseline and further measure learning outcomes and supporting factors, including the child’s hope, food and health, investments in learning, and the child’s preferences. We will study the impact on learning outcomes, explore the extent to which the supporting factors may explain these impacts, and research heterogeneous effects along various relevant dimensions.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Treurniet, Mark and Jeffrey R. Bloem. 2024. "The impact of after-school child sponsorship in the Philippines: Pre-analysis plan." AEA RCT Registry. March 20. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13213-1.1
Sponsors & Partners

Partner

Name
Stichting Woord en Daad
Type
ngo
URL
https://www.woordendaad.nl/
Name
AMG Philippines
Type
ngo
URL
https://www.amgphilippines.org/
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The after-school child sponsorship program of AMG Philippines.
Intervention Start Date
2023-09-30
Intervention End Date
2027-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Child learning outcomes.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
See our pre-analysis plan for definitions.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Child psychological variables, child food and health, investments in learning and child preferences.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
See our pre-analysis plan for definitions.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The key idea to study the impact of child sponsorship is to compare new children that will receive the program with similar, equally-eligible children that do not receive their program. We will use the opportunity that arises when Woord en Daad and AMG will expand their existing child sponsorship program in the Philippines: AMG will identify a larger group of eligible children, and use a fair, random procedure to select new children into the child sponsorship program.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Stratified randomization done in office by a computer.
Randomization Unit
We will randomly select 10 children from each of the 32 schools in our sample into the treatment, so the unit of randomization is the individual and the stratum is the school.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Not applicable.
Sample size: planned number of observations
We aim to sample on average 30 eligible children from each of the 32 schools in our sample, so 960 children in total.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
We will randomly select 10 children from each of the 32 schools in our sample into the treatment, so 320 children in total. The remaining children will compose our control group.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
The Minimum Detectable Effect size estimates range from 0.160-0.239 standard deviations, depending on autocorrelation and implementation of the experiment. These MDEs seem reasonable in the light of existing research. See Section 7 from our pre-analysis plan for details.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Institutional Review Board of the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Groningen
IRB Approval Date
2023-02-06
IRB Approval Number
FEB-20220322-13484
Analysis Plan

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