Impact of scouting at school on students ‘performance A randomized control trial of primary schools in Burkina Faso

2025-12-01

2026-05-31

Academic Performance; Socio-Emotional Skills

1. Academic Performance
.Measured using official classroom grades in core subjects (reading, writing, and mathematics).
.Grades are taken from routine administrative records at baseline and endline.
.Scores will be standardized (z-scores) and combined into a composite academic achievement index (Anderson, 2008).

2. Socio-Emotional Skills
.Measured through teacher assessments and structured classroom observation tools already used in school monitoring.
.Key domains include motivation, perseverance, cooperation, emotional regulation, self-confidence, prosocial behavior, and classroom engagement.

Attendance, Classroom Behavior, School Belonging, Civic and Community Participation

1. Attendance
Average number of days present during the school year, measured from official school attendance logs.

2. Classroom Behavior
Teacher-reported outcomes such as on-task behavior, disruptive incidents, and participation frequency.

3. School Belonging
Student sense of belonging and connection to school, measured through a short teacher-rated scale.

4. Civic and Community Participation
Engagement in service activities or prosocial actions within the school (e.g., helping peers, cleanliness activities), tracked through teacher logs.

This study uses a cluster-randomized controlled trial (CRT) to evaluate the impact of introducing the Cub Scout program in primary schools on students’ academic and socio-emotional outcomes. Randomization occurs at the school level to avoid contamination between treatment and control conditions.

The study is implemented in primary schools located in five randomly selected localities where the Association des Scouts du Burkina Faso (ASBF) has a stable operational presence. Within these localities, eligible schools are listed, and a sample of schools is randomly selected for participation.
Each participating school provides a list of all Grade 3 students enrolled at baseline. From this list, 30 students per school are randomly selected to form the evaluation cohort.

Schools are randomly assigned into two groups:
1. Treatment group (Scouting schools)
.Schools establish one or more Cub Scout units (“meutes”) for Grade 3 students.
.Weekly sessions (90–120 minutes) follow a 30-week structured activity plan combining academic reinforcement, socio-emotional learning, teamwork, creativity, and community service.
.Sessions are led by trained adult leaders (teachers or university students).
2.Control group (Non-scouting schools)
.Schools continue routine teaching and extracurricular activities.
.To ensure fairness, control schools receive the scouting program after the endline evaluation (delayed treatment).

Not available

Randomization done in office by a computer (Stata)

Primary schools

Yes

50

1500

1. 25 schools treatment (Cub Scout program), 25 schools control;
2. 30 Grade 3 students per school; 750 students treatment; 750 students control (total = 1,500 students)

Main outcome: standardized academic performance index (z-score), unit = standard deviations, SD = 1. Based on 50 schools (25 treatment, 25 control), 30 Grade 3 students per school, 80% power and 5% significance, and using mathematics scores from the 2021 “Evaluation des Acquis Scolaires (EAS)” for variance and intra-cluster correlation, the minimum detectable effect size (MDE) for the full student sample is about 0.25 SD (24.89% of a standard deviation). For subgroups, the MDE is 0.25 SD for girls (25.30%) and 0.26 SD for boys (25.72%)