Intensive Tutoring to Fight Early-Age School Difficulties

Last registered on August 13, 2014
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Intensive Tutoring to Fight Early-Age School Difficulties
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0000222
Initial registration date
August 13, 2014

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
August 13, 2014, 11:14 AM EDT

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

Last updated
August 13, 2014, 11:38 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country
France
Region
Nord
Country
France
Region
Ile-de-France

Primary Investigator

Name
Marc Gurgand
Affiliation
J-PAL Europe/PSE
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Eric Maurin
PI Affiliation
PSE
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Dominique Goux
PI Affiliation
CREST
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2010-04-01
End date
2012-11-01
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
primary school, remedial education program
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Learning difficulties can emerge very early in a child's life. If these problems are not addressed at an early stage, children can fall further and further behind in class, making it even more difficult for them to succeed to school. Additionally, low self-confidence and frustration may compound the problem, threatening the child’s future forever. For this reason, identifying and addressing learning problems at an early age is an important challenge for any education system. Remedial education is one possible way to tackle these difficulties. The intervention, provided by a publicly funded NGO, consists of offering to five underachievers in first grade an intensive tutoring program (four 1.5 hour sessions each week) focused on reading books and informal language games. The intervention was provided to some schools randomly selected.

The comparason between treatment and control schools did not exhibit significant positive treatment effects, compared to school routine work with underachievers.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Goux, Dominique, Marc Gurgand and Eric Maurin. 2014. "Intensive Tutoring to Fight Early-Age School Difficulties." AEA RCT Registry. August 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.222-2.0
Former Citation
Goux, Dominique, Marc Gurgand and Eric Maurin. 2014. "Intensive Tutoring to Fight Early-Age School Difficulties." AEA RCT Registry. August 13. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/222/history/2454
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Grade 1 children whose school was randomly selected for treatment received intensive tutoring delevered by a public funded NGO, consisting of four 1.5 hour sessions each week for the remainder of the year. These tutoring sessions took place after school hours and consisted in reading books and language related games. The stated objective is to compensate for lack of cultural input in low income families. In addition, counseling was provided to parents on how they could support their child’s learning process at home.
Intervention Start Date
2010-12-01
Intervention End Date
2011-06-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Reading scores; Taste for maths, reading and sports; Teacher appreciation; Parents opinion.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
A total of 109 schools participated in the trial. At the begggining of the school year (November), each first grade teacher was asked to designated a list of five underachievers who were the most in need for tutoring ("priority list"). The "priority lists" were then transmited to the research team before randomization. The schools selected in the treatment group offered the intensive tutoring to the pupils on the priority list during the first year (2010/2011). The control schools benefited from the program on the following school year (2011/2012). Since the lists were collected before randomization, the "priority list" pupils in the treatment group can be compared to the ones in the control group. This gives the direct treatment effect of the intensive tutoring. Likewise, the students not included on the priority list in the control can be used as conterfactual for the ones in the treatment school. This also identifies the indirect effect or externalities of the intervention.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Schools
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
109
Sample size: planned number of observations
5101 Students, of which 913 in the "priority list"
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
72 in treatment, 37 in control
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
29% of a standard deviation (full compliance, ICC on overal first grade test score 7.4%)
Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Comité d'éthique de J-PAL Europe
IRB Approval Date
2011-03-01
IRB Approval Number
none
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
June 01, 2011, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
November 01, 2012, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
109 Schools
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
3874 respondants (first grade measures), 2994 respondants (second grade measures)
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
70 in treatment, 37 in control, actually observed
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
No
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Abstract

Citation
"Evaluation d'impact du dispostif Coup de Pouce Clé", Dominque Goux, Marc Gurgand, Eric Mauri, and Adrien Bouguen, Rapport pour le Fonds d'expérimentation pour la jeunesse, Mai 2013.
URL
http://www.experimentation.jeunes.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/Rapport_Final_EVA-quanti_HAP-02.pdf

Reports & Other Materials