The Role of Parents: An Intervention to Foster Responsive Parenting

Last registered on January 06, 2025

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The Role of Parents: An Intervention to Foster Responsive Parenting
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015114
Initial registration date
January 05, 2025

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
January 06, 2025, 12:47 PM EST

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University Konstanz

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University Konstanz
PI Affiliation
University Konstanz
PI Affiliation
THWS
PI Affiliation
Texas A&M
PI Affiliation
Texas A&M

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2025-01-05
End date
2025-05-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Parents undeniably play a pivotal role in shaping the development of their children. Besides parental investments in form of money and time, parenting style and thus the way how parents raise their children holds substantial importance for their children’s development. The causes and consequences of parenting style, however, are still understudied. To this end, we have developed a digital parenting program designed to enhance responsive parenting. We deliberately chose the digital format as it shall allow for an easy and flexible usage. To evaluate the parenting program we collaborate with around 100 preschools in Lower Franconia (Germany) and randomly assign parents to participate in the digital parenting program. Our focus lies on investigating whether i) the digital parenting program works; in other words, whether parents make use of it and ultimately employ more responsive parenting strategies, ii) responsive parenting has positive consequences for parents, in terms of their confidence and perceived sense-of-competence in their parenting, as well as their own mental health, and iii) responsive parenting has positive consequences for children’s development, in a first instance in terms of children’s social-cognitive and behavioral development.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Castillo, Marco et al. 2025. "The Role of Parents: An Intervention to Foster Responsive Parenting." AEA RCT Registry. January 06. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15114-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Together with experts from the Workers’ Welfare Organization (AWO), one of the largest welfare organizations in Germany and active in the area of childcare provision and family services, we developed a digital parenting program consisting of a series of short (1 minute), non-verbal, gender/race neutral, and fun to watch animated video clips on how to become a responsive parent. Each video clip refers to a daily challenge that parents can relate to and provides hands-on, easy to implement tips how to defuse such situations and how to make parenting easier and more enjoyable. The overall program consists of three modules based on the key capacities required for responsive parenting: i) effective communication, ii) perspective taking, and iii) granting autonomy (Baumrind, 1991, Fisher et al. 2016). It is scheduled to last nine weeks, three weeks for each module. There are six tutorial video clips, two for each key capacity. During the first two weeks of each module parents will receive facts and tips regarding the respective capacity. Following York et al. (2018), on Mondays parents will receive the tutorial video, on Wednesdays they will be encouraged to engage in an activity designed to practice the tips given in the video, and on Fridays they will receive a motivational message to continue with the activity. There will be a one-week break between each module to reflect and practice the advice.
Intervention Start Date
2025-01-13
Intervention End Date
2025-03-07

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
i) responsive parenting strategies, ii) parental outcomes (confidence and perceived sense-of-competence in their parenting, mental health), and iii) child outcomes, in a first instance children’s social-cognitive and behavioral development.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Randomized control trial: We draw from a sample of parents who have participated in a data collection related to KIDSnGROUPS (an ERC funded project on the Early Origins of Social Cohesion running). All parents whose child was enrolled in one of 102 preschools in the area of Lower Franconia (Germany) were invited to this data collection. Data collection took place between November 20, 2024 and January 2, 2025. and all together 1,458 parents participated.

We randomly assigned parents two treatment arms and one control group:
• Incentivized treatment group: Invited to the digital parenting program and take-up will be incentivized.
• Non-incentivized treatment group: Invited to the digital parenting program, but no further incentivizes are paid out.
• Control group: Not invited to the digital parenting program.

Assignment to the treatment groups and the control group occurs randomly at the preschool level and is stratified by two characteristics: i) whether preschools had handed out invitations to the baseline survey on time (note that parents who themselves or whose children had previously participated in KIDSnGROUPS still received an invitation directly from us via e-mail and thus had the chance to participate in the baseline survey.) and ii) whether the preschool participated simultaneously in a pedagogical program on social cohesion.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done using Stata
Randomization Unit
Preschool
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Around 100 preschools
Sample size: planned number of observations
Around 1'500 parents
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Equal split between treatment arms
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Institutional Review Board of the University of Konstanz
IRB Approval Date
2024-11-15
IRB Approval Number
39/2024