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Last Published July 27, 2026 08:04 PM July 27, 2026 08:18 PM
Primary Outcomes (End Points) - Peer-to-peer violence (admin reports and self-reports) - Psychological well-being (survey-based scales) - Social cohesion (survey network analysis, sense of belonging, games measuring prosociality) Four confirmatory families plus a human-capital umbrella, each summarized by a control-referenced index (first factor score, z-scored to control; equal-weighted z-average as robustness): (1) Violence — violence_index (15 EPVS items; emotional and physical sub-indices; a discrimination sub-index; Sistema de Alertas incidents; discipline records); (2) Psychological well-being — phsyco_wellbeing_index (self/peers/teachers connectedness + school motivation); (3) Mental health — index of GAD-7, PHQ-9, and stress; (4) Social cohesion — belonging, positive/negative network ties, willingness to spend time together, and cooperative-game team performance. Human capital is a primary umbrella with three separate sub-indices: cognitive performance (in-survey cognitive games), academic performance (in-survey knowledge test and self-reported/administrative grades and promotion), and school trajectory (attendance, retention, transfers, dropout, repetition).
Primary Outcomes (Explanation) Variables will be aggregated into indices based on their factor loadings derived from exploratory factor analysis, and standarized with respect to the control group. Indices are first-factor scores standardized to the control group. There are seven primary average-effect tests (the four family indices plus the three human-capital sub-indices). Inference uses randomization inference (within-pair permutation) with Romano–Wolf family-wise correction; Benjamini–Krieger–Yekutieli FDR q-values reported. Tests are two-sided at α=0.05.
Experimental Design (Public) Design: Each sampled school nominates a secondary (7-9 grade) classroom identified as ‘in conflict’ by each school board. Classrooms are then randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, using stratification based on geographic location and the school’s violence index. H1: RP reduces peer-to-peer violence. H2: RP improves students’ psychological well-being. H3: RP improves classroom social cohesion. H4: RP improves human capital (learning, cognitive performance, and educational attainment). Mechanisms Empathy, self-awareness and responsible decision-making. Heterogeneous effects Based on the theoretical framework, it is essential to examine the differential impacts contingent upon students’ roles within in-class conflicts, especially to track potential negative effects in terms of re-victimization, stigmatization (aggressors), and learnig (bystanders). H6: The intervention will have stronger positive effects in students suffering from violence (minorities, pre-intervention victims), while not affecting bystanders. Drawing on qualitative findings, there is an expectation that violence may re-emerge in the absence of a sufficiently positive environment. H7: The intervention will work better in less violent school environments. Data Collection Sources: - Alert System (violence and behavioral incidents) - Administrative data - School Environment Survey - Administrative data - Enrollment, grades, attendance, discipline reports - Reported from schools - Endline survey with all the students in each sampled classroom and lab-in-the-field games. Timing: - Baseline: Existing admin data. This includes demographic characteristics for all students in the sampled classroom and the role in current in-classroom conflict (victim, aggressor, bystander). - Endline: Collected 3 months after intervention. And administrative data up to 2 years after intervention. H1 RP reduces violence; H2 improves well-being; H3 mental-health effect a priori ambiguous, registered as role-conditional; H4 improves cohesion; H5 improves human capital (cognition, grades, trajectory). H6 (by role): effects are stronger for students in conflict pre-treatment — victims gain on learning but may experience null-to-worse short-run mental health (welfare trade-off, consistent with Cilliers, Dube & Siddiqi 2016), while aggressors gain across fronts. H7: effects concentrated among sub-populations more likely to be victims (LGBTQ, female, disability, victim per Alertas, displaced/migrant). H8: mechanisms via socioemotional skills, norms (incl. reporting), and prosociality. Directional predictions, two-sided tests.
Randomization Unit Unit of randomization: School level. In schools with multiple shifts i.e. with classes on morning and afternoon shifts, each shift is considered an independent unit. Unit of randomization: School level.
Planned Number of Clusters Sample Size: 300 classrooms total — 150 treatments, 150 control — from 300 schools. Sample Size: 216 classrooms total — 108 treatments, 108 control — from 216 schools. ~33 students per classroom in average
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms 120 contro, 120 treatment. 108 contro, 108 treatment.
Power calculation: Minimum Detectable Effect Size for Main Outcomes MDEs based on 2023 data suggest 0.07–0.13 SD detectable effects on primary outcomes with 120 treated and 120 control classrooms, ~30 students per class, given significance level of 0.05 and statistical power of 0.80. To increase statistical power, the experiment will include a pure control arm that won’t be invited to the intervention nor surveyed. I will test impacts using administrative data (which includes violence and educational attainments). Pooled ≈100 per arm (target 102/102), α=0.05, power=0.80, two-sided; realized class size ≈26.5 (power_calculations_phase2.py). ATE MDEs ≈0.09–0.11 SD (violence 0.113, well-being 0.106, stress 0.089, belonging 0.091); within-victim/aggressor MDEs ≈0.16–0.18 SD. ICCs: violence 0.045, well-being 0.035, stress 0.013, belonging 0.016; prior-wave cognitive ICC ≈0.060.To increase statistical power, the experiment will include a pure control arm that won’t be invited to the intervention nor surveyed. I will test impacts using administrative data (which includes violence and educational attainments).
Secondary Outcomes (End Points) - Socio-emotional skills: Empathy, self awareness and socially responsible decision-making - Learning, academic performance and educational attainments. - Cognitive performance: Attention, working memory, processing speed, inhibitory control, among others. Mechanisms: socioemotional skills (empathy, self-awareness, conflict-resolution skills); attitudes toward violence; reporting norms (willingness to report under a randomized public vs. anonymous frame); preference for reparation vs. sanction; identity shift (moral/prosocial, agency, victim, reputation, defender); and behavioral prosociality games (dictator, trust, cooperation).
Secondary Outcomes (Explanation) Variables will be aggregated into indices based on their factor loadings derived from exploratory factor analysis, and standarized with respect to the control group. Each mechanism family is aggregated into a control-referenced index (first factor score, z-scored to the control group; equal-weighted z-average of standardized items as robustness), directions harmonized so that higher values denote improvement, with constituent items also reported. These outcomes are secondary/exploratory: they trace the channels through which the intervention operates and help interpret null or attenuated primary effects. Estimation uses the same model as the primary outcomes (role interactions, pair/stratum and wave fixed effects, SEs clustered at the classroom, randomization inference); tests are two-sided at α=0.05 and adjusted for multiplicity within family using Benjamini–Krieger–Yekutieli FDR q-values. The reporting-norms module additionally identifies the norm-shift as the treatment × public-frame interaction (the imagined-audience "tax" on reporting), not the main effect.
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