Socio-Emotional Development Program in Elementary School Students: impact evaluation in Southern Chile.

Last registered on April 26, 2024

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Socio-Emotional Development Program in Elementary School Students: impact evaluation in Southern Chile.
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0013490
Initial registration date
April 24, 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
April 26, 2024, 12:41 PM EDT

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

Locations

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Universidad de Chile

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-03-01
End date
2026-01-01
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
In Chile, significant challenges are faced in the mental health and well-being of children. One in every five children has a mental health disorder, and 70% have experienced violence at home. Additionally, the country leads in marijuana and cocaine use among youth in Latin America. To address these issues, we propose a scalable socio-emotional intervention that aims to improve the socio-emotional well-being of children in vulnerable contexts. The intervention design involves to enhance socio-emotional skills, to align them with children's tastes and preferences through the creation of cultural, sports, and scientific communities. This study aims to measure the causal effect on socio-emotional skills and psychosocial problems of children aged 9-10 years old. The evaluation will test if the programme improvements lead to an increase in socio-emotional outcomes usign a cluster randomised control trial.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Jervis, Pamela. 2024. "Socio-Emotional Development Program in Elementary School Students: impact evaluation in Southern Chile.." AEA RCT Registry. April 26. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13490-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2024-04-01
Intervention End Date
2025-11-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
1) Motivation of children using EMONIS, a likert scale created in Chile, at baseline and endline. Israel, R., Villagrán, M. (2012). Motivación escolar en niños y niñas de 10 a 14 años (EMONIS). Reflexiones sobre la sociedad chilena. Una mirada desde la universidad. RIL Editores

2) Executive function through Heart and Flowers task at baseline and endline. Wright, A. & Diamond, A. (2014). An effect of inhibitory load in children while keeping
working memory load constant. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 36-44

3) Teacher student relationship with the student-teacher relationship subscale from the Student Engagement Instrument at baseline and endline. Appleton, J. J., Christenson, S. L., Kim, D., & Reschly, A. L. (2006). Measuring cognitive and psychological
engagement: Validation of the student engagement instrument. Journal of School Psychology, 44(5),
427–445. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2006.04.002
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
1) Self-esteem using "Test de Autoestima escolar" created in Chile at baseline and endline. Marchant, T., Haeussler, I., & Torretti, A. (2016). TAE Batería de Tests de Autoestima
Escolar. Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile.

2) Self-efficacy using Generalized self-efficacy scale at baseline and endline. Schwarzer, R., & Jerusalem, M. (1995). Generalized self-efficacy scale. J. Weinman, S. Wright, & M. Johnston, Measures in health psychology: A user’s portfolio. Causal and control beliefs, 35, 37.

3) Grit using a likert scale created in Chile at baseline and endline. Yovaniniz, X. (2022). ¿Cómo medir y potenciar el grit en estudiantes de educación básica?. Repositorio UC.

4) Sense of belonging using the sense of belonging and emotional conection with peers from The Community sense scale in classroom at baseline and endline. Petrillo, G., Capone, V., & Donizzetti, A. (2016). Classroom sense of community scale: Validation of a
self-report measure for adolescents. Journal of Community Psychology, 44(3), 339–409. https:// doi.
org/ 10. 1002/ jcop. 21769

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The intervention will be stratified at the school level in Araucania, Chile. - municipalities were selected using purposive sampling out of the total of 38 municipalities of Araucania. The selection of municipalities was based on the criteria that the municipality has public or government-subsidized schools and they are not difficult to access territorially. From the municipalities elected, 47 schools were eligible to participate in the study, of which 23 schools were assigned to treatment and 24 schools to control group. The intervention will be randomised at the school level. Randomization will be done on the computer using Stata. There are two study arms: 1) Treatment Arm receiving the socio-emotional intervention. The schools in the treatment arm will receive the program only for those classroom of children aged in average 9-10 years old.
2) Control Arm receiving the statuo quo: The students in the control arm will receive the statuo quo services provided by the school.

Since the foundation in charge of the intervention did not have enough capacity to work with all the schools in the treatment group, this study was divided into two cohorts. The first cohort includes 10 treatment schools and 13 control schools that joined the study in the first year. The second cohort consists of 13 treatment schools and 11 control schools that will enter the study in the second year. The randomization into treatment and control groups, and between cohort 1 and cohort 2, was conducted at the beginning of the study.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Computer on Stata
Randomization Unit
School
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
47 schools
Sample size: planned number of observations
1269 students
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
23 schools treatment
24 schools control
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
0.244 std
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
The Ethics and Biosafety Committee for Research of the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (FCFM) of the University of Chile
IRB Approval Date
2023-12-04
IRB Approval Number
30