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The Math for Parents and Children Together Project

Last registered on October 18, 2022

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The Math for Parents and Children Together Project
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0002512
Initial registration date
November 30, 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
December 01, 2017, 11:00 AM EST

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

Last updated
October 18, 2022, 9:22 AM EDT

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

Locations

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Boston University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Chicago
PI Affiliation
University of Chicago

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2017-10-08
End date
2020-03-22
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Disadvantaged children are particularly at risk for entering kindergarten behind their more advantaged peers, setting up an achievement gap that continues through later school and into adulthood. Early math skills are the strongest predictor of both later math and reading skills. However, many parents spend little time promoting their children's math skills at home. Interventions to support parent's promotion of their children's math skills in the home environment may help build math and reading skills and narrow this gap. Unfortunately, few home-based interventions for low-income parents emphasize children's early math learning and even fewer have been rigorously evaluated.

MPACT, Math for Parents and Children Together, is a program that teaches parents what effective math instruction for young children looks like, shows them how to integrate math learning into everyday routines, and encourages parents to spend time in these activities. Building on the principles of the successful Parents and Children Together (PACT) project, which increased the time low-income parents spent reading to their children, MPACT uses insights from behavioral science to promote parents' engagement in building children's developmentally-relevant math skills.

Chicago-area parents with children ages 3-4 who are currently enrolled in subsidized preschool programs will be randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups or a control group. The first treatment group will be lent a digital tablet preloaded with developmentally appropriate, math-focused applications. The second group will receive an activity booklet with developmentally appropriate, math-focused activities for parents to do with their child. The third group will receive the same intervention as group two and in addition will receive behaviorally informed text messages aimed at overcoming present bias. The fourth group will receive the same intervention as group two and in addition will receive text messages with a growth-mindset approach. The control group will receive no math tools or behaviorally informed intervention.

The goal of MPACT is to test how each of these different interventions improves parents' confidence in building their children's math skills, decreases parents' math anxiety, and increases children's relevant math skills, such as: numeracy, number recognition and relationship, and counting.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Delgado, William, Ariel Kalil and Susan Mayer. 2022. "The Math for Parents and Children Together Project." AEA RCT Registry. October 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2512-2.0
Former Citation
Delgado, William, Ariel Kalil and Susan Mayer. 2022. "The Math for Parents and Children Together Project." AEA RCT Registry. October 18. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2512/history/197459
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The MPACT Project is a twelve-week experimental intervention developed for parents with children to increase children's math skills. The study is conducted in three rounds, with first round starting in Fall 2017 and last round starting in Fall 2018. Chicago-area parents with children ages 3-4 who are currently enrolled in subsidized preschool programs will be randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups or a control group. The first treatment group will be lent a digital tablet preloaded with developmentally appropriate, math-focused applications. The second group will receive an activity booklet with developmentally appropriate, math-focused activities for parents to do with their child. The third group will receive the same intervention as group two and in addition will receive behaviorally informed text messages aimed at overcoming present bias. The fourth group will receive the same intervention as group two and in addition will receive text messages intended to change parental beliefs to growth mindset. The control group will receive no math tools or behaviorally informed intervention.
Intervention Start Date
2017-12-03
Intervention End Date
2019-02-24

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Woodcock-Johnson IV Applied Problems and Preschool Early Numeracy Skills assessments.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Parental attitudes and beliefs on math engagement with children
Teacher's attitudes and beliefs on math engagement with children
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
Attitudes and beliefs come from parents' and teachers' reports in a series of survey questions

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Eligible parents were those whose primary language was either English or Spanish, who had a child of age between 3 and 4 approximately, and who enrolled their children at one of our participant subsidized preschool centers in Chicago area.
Eligible parents who signed a consent form and were willing to receive text messages were randomized to either of the four treatment or control groups. In some preschool centers an opt-out recruitment strategy was used, thus eligible parents in these centers were enrolled, unless they consented not to be part of the project.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, about five classrooms per round across centers were randomly assigned to the untreated classroom group, which had control kids only, and the rest of the classrooms were assigned to the treated classroom group. In the second stage, students within the treated classrooms were assigned to a treatment or control group.
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer.
Randomization Unit
Classroom level randomization for treated and untreated classrooms.
Individual randomization for children in treated classrooms.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
150 classrooms (22 school-rounds with about 7 classrooms each)
Sample size: planned number of observations
1,500 children (10 children per classroom)
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
15 untreated classrooms, 135 treated classrooms.
150 control children in untreated classrooms
300 control children in treated classrooms, 300 MKit group, 300 MKit + present bias group, 300 Mkit + growth mindset group, 150 in math app group.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Assuming 1,500 students in 150 classrooms, 4 treatment groups and a control group, intra-class correlation of 0.2 and power of 0.8, the minimum detectable effect size when comparing one treatment group with control is 0.23. Regarding peer-effects analysis, the minimum detectable effect size when comparing controls in treated classrooms versus controls in untreated classrooms is 0.41.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Social and Behavioral Sciences Institutional Review Board (SBS-IRB) at the University of Chicago.
IRB Approval Date
2016-11-09
IRB Approval Number
IRB16-0880
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

MPACT Analysis Plan

MD5: 768575b1d006c2943211ff5d6d6a1ebd

SHA1: a59aeac9d1efbb6a77b649f6f2ba2715a3f9f1f5

Uploaded At: November 30, 2017

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
December 31, 2018, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
March 01, 2020, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
181
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
1,187
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
348 control, 122 math app, 239 MKit, 239 growth mindset, 239 present bias.
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
Yes

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Program Files

Program Files
Yes
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Abstract
Math skill in early childhood is a key predictor of future academic achievement. Parental engagement in math learning contributes to the growth of children’s math skills during this period. To help boost parent-child engagement in math activities and children’s math skills, we conducted an RCT lasting 12 weeks with 758 low-income preschoolers (3-5 years old) and their primary caregivers. Parents were randomized into five groups: 1) a control group, and groups that received 2) a digital tablet with math apps for children; 3) analog math materials for parents to use with children, 4) analog math materials with weekly text messages to manage parents’ present bias; and 5) analog math materials with weekly text messages to increase parents’ growth mindset. Relative to the control group, neither the analog math materials alone nor the analog materials with growth mindset messages increased child math skills during the intervention period. However, the analog math materials combined with messaging to manage present bias and the digital tablet with math apps increased child math skills by about 0.20 standard deviations (p=.10) measured six months after the intervention. These two treatments also significantly increased parents’ self-reported time engaged in math activities with their children.
Citation
Mayer, S., Kalil, A., Delgado, W., Liu, H., Rury, D., & Shah, R. (2023). Boosting parent- child math engagement and preschool Children’s math skills: Evidence from an RCT with low-income families. Economics of Education Review, 95, 102436.

Reports & Other Materials