Educational Opportunity and Prosocial Behavior

Last registered on May 04, 2017

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Educational Opportunity and Prosocial Behavior
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0002199
Initial registration date
May 04, 2017

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
May 04, 2017, 4:18 PM EDT

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

Last updated
May 04, 2017, 4:27 PM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University of California, Irvine

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2008-02-01
End date
2011-04-30
Secondary IDs
Abstract
The study builds on an intervention in Cambodia that offered scholarships to students as they were beginning the 4th grade of primary school. The study follows these students as they are now approximately 20 years old. Applicants who were randomized into a group that were offered the scholarships were substantially more likely to complete primary school; the estimated impact was 14 to 20 percentage points more likely to complete Grade 6 against a counterfactual of 60 percent. This exogenous variation will be used to identify the role that schooling plays in the acquisition of pro-social behavior in early adulthood.

The experiment also randomly assigned some students to receive scholarships based on their baseline poverty status, and some to receive "merit-based" scholarships based on their scores on a math and Khmer language test at baseline. Recipients who were randomly assigned to be offered merit-based scholarships attained higher test scores at the end of primary school (the increase was on the order or 0.20 standard deviations), compared to those offered poverty-based scholarships. The proposed research will exploit this additional exogenous variation to identify the role that this skill acquisition during the schooling process had on pro-social behavior in early adulthood. The study explicitly focuses on this outcome - the study's sister-project (co-authored with Felipe Barrera-Osorio and Deon Filmer) analyzes broader impacts on a wide range of alternative outcomes.

Registration Citation

Citation
de Barros, Andreas. 2017. "Educational Opportunity and Prosocial Behavior." AEA RCT Registry. May 04. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2199-2.0
Former Citation
de Barros, Andreas. 2017. "Educational Opportunity and Prosocial Behavior." AEA RCT Registry. May 04. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2199/history/17339
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)
Elementary school scholarships, randomized at the school level (and stratified by province), in three arms: Control, "Treatment" based on "merit", "Treatment" based on "need". Within each "treated" school, assignment was done at the student-level, using the respective median score. See Barrera-Osorio & Filmer (2016) for further details.

Barrera-Osorio, F., & Filmer, D. (2016). Incentivizing Schooling for Learning: Evidence on the Impact of Alternative Targeting Approaches. The Journal of Human Resources, 51(2), 461.
Intervention Start Date
2008-02-01
Intervention End Date
2011-04-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
A measure of pro-social behavior as elicited through a "dictator game"
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
At the end of a survey, respondents are offered approximately USD2. Respondents are asked whether they would like to keep the money or donate it to their local school. The outcome is a dichotomous variable, where "1" indicates a donation.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Elementary school scholarships, randomized at the school level (and stratified by province), in three arms: Control, "Treatment" based on "merit", "Treatment" based on "need". Within each "treated" school, assignment was done at the student-level, using the respective median score. Barrera-Osorio & Filmer (2016) provide a detailed description of the experimental design.

Barrera-Osorio, F., & Filmer, D. (2016). Incentivizing Schooling for Learning: Evidence on the Impact of Alternative Targeting Approaches. The Journal of Human Resources, 51(2), 461.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization in central office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Elementary school scholarships, randomized at the school level (and stratified by province), in three arms: Control, "Treatment" based on "merit", "Treatment" based on "need". Within each "treated" school, assignment was done at the student-level, using the respective median score to determine eligibility. Barrera-Osorio & Filmer (2016) provide a detailed description of the experimental design.

Barrera-Osorio, F., & Filmer, D. (2016). Incentivizing Schooling for Learning: Evidence on the Impact of Alternative Targeting Approaches. The Journal of Human Resources, 51(2), 461.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
207 schools
Sample size: planned number of observations
approx. 2,360
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
207 (of which 52 are "merit schools" and 51 are "need schools")
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials

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

Request Information
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Harvard CUHS
IRB Approval Date
2016-12-22
IRB Approval Number
IRB16-1518
Analysis Plan

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

Request Information

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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

Request Information

Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
April 30, 2011, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
No
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials