Fostering Human Capital and Youth Empowerment in Northwest Nigeria through Edutainment, EdTech and Digital Workshops

This study will evaluate the causal impact of combining aspirational video screenings and EdTech tools (T1) and an add-on intervention consisting of digital skill workshops (T1+T2) to improve learning outcomes, agency and shift harmful social norms among adolescents aged 10–15 in northern Nigeria (Kano, Jigawa and Sokoto). In the 44 communities receiving the treatment, 40% of treated participants will receive a mobile phone with m-learning apps.

All participants allocated to T1 will be invited to aspirational video screenings, and 40% of these participants will receive a mobile phone with m-learning apps. T2 consists of all T1 components plus digital learning workshops aimed at promoting reading habits through the m-learning apps. The control group will not receive any intervention.

This study will not assess the separate impact of aspirational video screenings and EdTech as this was done in a previous trial led by the PI. See details here http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4221220.

2025-07-26

2025-10-12

Adolescents (10-15 years old)

Overall literacy and numeracy skills, early marriage and parenthood among female adolescents, and selected psychological and attitudinal measures such adolescents’ aspirations about early marriage and self-efficacy beliefs about improving literacy skills.



Parents of Adolescents

Parental attitude towards school and early marriage.

Literacy and numeracy skills



Literacy outcomes will be constructed as an aggregated measure of the following EGRA components: letter recognition, passage reading, reading comprehension, listening comprehension, and letter and word dictation. In addition to the aggregated measure, we will also examine an indicator of foundational skills, measured as the proportion of adolescents with zero correct answers in letter recognition.

Numeracy outcomes will be constructed as an aggregated measure of the following EGMA components: number recognition, number discrimination, missing number identification, addition, and subtraction.

Early marriage and Early Parenthood

Early marriage will be measured as the proportion of female adolescents married by age 18.

Early parenthood will be measured as the proportion of mothers by age 18.



Adolescent aspirations



These will be measure using questions such as: Would you like to get married in the future?, Ideally, at what age would you like to get married? Ideally, at what age would you like to have your first child? , Which of these drawings reflects what you aspire to do most of your time when you turn 15 (options: Attending school to study how to read/write and numeracy, working outside home (e.g., working in the local market or the business of a family or relative), being married and taking care of your own home, helping your family with domestic chores, attending school to study religious education, other (open question)).



Adolescent Self-efficacy beliefs about their own learning



Independently of your education, your parents’ education, your literacy level and main language spoken at home, how capable do you feel about: learning or improving your reading and writing skills in Hausa?, learning or improving your numeracy skills (e.g., sums, subtractions)?, improving your communication skills by using games at home such as telling a story to your parents or siblings, reading to them or singing with them? improving your learning in literacy and numeracy by setting a specific time and place for studying at home? Each of these is a separate question.



Self-Efficacy beliefs about their sibling’s learning



Independently of your education, your parents’ education, your literacy level and main language spoken at home, how capable do you feel about helping your siblings to (each of this is a separate question): learn or improve their reading and writing skills in Hausa?, to learn/improve their numeracy skills (e.g., sums, subtractions)?, to improve their communication skills by using games at home such as asking your siblings to tell you a story, ask them to read to you, or sing with you?, to improve their learning in literacy and numeracy by setting a specific time and place for studying at home?.

Based on the theory of change, we also expect changes in the proportion of out-of-school children, retention rates from primary to secondary school, adolescent aspirations for further schooling, parental aspirations for their children's schooling and marriage, and parental self-efficacy beliefs about supporting their children's learning at home. Currently, our study is not powered to detect these outcomes at the standard 80% statistical power threshold. However, if the interventions prove more impactful than our assumed minimum detectable effect (MDE), statistical power for these outcomes will likely exceed 80%. We therefore classify these as secondary outcomes.



We will also analyse possible mechanisms such as expectations, perception of gender roles and gender attitudes, and preferences for attending school in the future, getting married, helping with domestic chores, among others. We will also explore changes in mental health and socioemotional skills (e.g., grit, agency, self-esteem).

These interventions will be evaluated through a cluster randomized control trial. In total, 44 communities will be assigned to T1—half of which will receive an add-on of digital learning workshops—and 44 assigned to the Control group.

Not available

This is a cluster randomized controlled trial in which communities, defined as school catchment areas, will be randomly allocated to T1, T2, or control groups. Randomisation has been done in our office by a computer using Stata.

Our randomization unit is the community, defined as school catchment areas.

Yes

We will have 88 communities, defined as school catchment areas.

Baseline and follow-up data collection will take place in all 88 communities. In each community, 60 adolescents will be interviewed (30 girls and 30 boys), along with one parent and one sibling, resulting in a total of 5,280 families. We will also interview 30 adolescent neighbours (15 girls and 15 boys) to measure spillovers on the primary outcomes outlined above, resulting in a total of 2,640 neighbours.

44 treatment communities and 44 control communities. Out of the 44 treated communities, 22 will receive, additionally, digital learning workshops for 6 weeks.