Local Monitoring of Teacher Attendance in Afghanistan

Last registered on August 02, 2018

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Local Monitoring of Teacher Attendance in Afghanistan

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0003172

Initial registration date

July 30, 2018

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 02, 2018, 1:45 AM EDT

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

Last updated

August 02, 2018, 10:30 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country

Afghanistan

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Stefano Fiorin

Affiliation

Bocconi University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2018-04-01

End date

2018-12-31

Keywords

Education, Governance

Additional Keywords

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Abstract

In this project, we study the willingness of teachers to report on the absenteeism of their colleagues. Teachers in a control group are told that their reports will be used only for an academic study, and will not be forwarded to the Ministry of Education (MoE). Teachers in the "low punishment" group will be told that the reports might be forwarded to the MoE, and that this might trigger a minor punishment like a small salary reduction. Teachers in the "high punishment" group are told that the reports might be forwarded to the MoE, which has recently instituted a committee for fighting absenteeism, and that reports might trigger serious punishments like contract terminations. This allows us to study whether teachers value having absentees punished, or if instead, they want to protect their colleagues, and how this varies with the severity of punishment. We interact this three treatments with monetary incentives and evaluate how they affect the willingness to report.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Fiorin, Stefano. 2018. "Local Monitoring of Teacher Attendance in Afghanistan." AEA RCT Registry. August 02. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3172-2.0

Former Citation

Fiorin, Stefano. 2018. "Local Monitoring of Teacher Attendance in Afghanistan." AEA RCT Registry. August 02. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/3172/history/32555

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Employees from the MoE will receive phone calls from a research team collaborating with the MoE and will be asked to report on the absenteeism of their colleagues. Employees who are willing to participate will be randomized into six different treatment group along two dimensions. Some employee will be told the reports will only be used for an academic study, while others will be told that reports might trigger punishments (minor or severe) for their colleagues. Some employees will be offered monetary incentives for reporting, while others won't. Employees will then be given the names of ten colleagues and asked whether those colleagues were sometimes absent in the previous week or in the past.

Intervention Start Date

2018-07-30

Intervention End Date

2018-08-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Willingness to report absenteeism

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

1) control group: employees are told that their reports will be used only for an academic study, and will not be forwarded to the Ministry of Education (MoE);
2) low punishment group: employees are told that the reports might also be forwarded to the MoE and that this might trigger a minor punishment like a small salary reduction;
3) high punishment group: employees are told that the reports might be forwarded to the MoE, which has recently instituted a committee for fighting absenteeism, and that reports might trigger serious punishments like contract terminations;
4) monetary incentives group: employees are told that their reports will be used only for an academic study, and will not be forwarded to the Ministry of Education (MoE); they will also be offered a monetary incentive for each absentee they report;
2) low punishment monetary incentives group: employees are told that the reports might also be forwarded to the MoE and that this might trigger a minor punishment like a small salary reduction; they will also be offered a monetary incentive for each absentee they report;
3) high punishment monetary incentives group: employees are told that the reports might be forwarded to the MoE, which has recently instituted a committee for fighting absenteeism, and that reports might trigger serious punishments like contract terminations; they will also be offered a monetary incentive for each absentee they report.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

The randomization will be done on Stata.

Randomization Unit

The randomization will be done at the employee level, stratifying the treatment at the school level.

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

About 750 employees.

Sample size: planned number of observations

About 7500 observations (10 colleagues for each employee).

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

control group: 125 employees
low punishment group: 125 employees
high punishment group: 125 employees
monetary incentives group: 125 employees
low punishment monetary incentives group: 125 employees
high punishment monetary incentives group: 125 employees

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB