AEA RCT Registry

General Information

Title

Movies, Mobile Gaming and Digital Books: Experimental Evaluation of Entertainment Education Interventions to Change Social Norms and Improve Educational Outcomes in Northern Nigeria

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0003619

Initial registration date

December 05, 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

December 06, 2018, 8:17 AM EST

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

Last updated

November 18, 2020, 7:35 PM EST

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

Locations

Country

Nigeria

Region

Africa

Primary Investigator

Name

Ericka Gabriela Rascon Ramirez

Affiliation

Middlesex University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Victor Orozco

PI Affiliation

The World Bank

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2018-12-06

End date

2021-05-31

Keywords

Education, Gender

Additional Keywords

Behavioral Intervention, Mobile-Learning, Social Norms

JEL code(s)

D04, D10, D91 I20, J16

Secondary IDs

Abstract

Literacy rates in developing countries remain lagged behind their developed counterparts; a key barrier for human capital formation. In North West Nigeria, fewer than fifteen percent of children can read a complete sentence (Nigeria Education Data Survey, 2010). Adverse social norms, parental attitudes and lack of information about education greatly explain why half of children do not attend primary school. To help educational systems leapfrog and improve learning outcomes, this RCT provides an opportunity to test the effect of an educational entertainment and digital app intervention to inform policy makers and development partners about how such interventions may influence literacy rates of children and parental attitudes toward education.

This RCT is compounded by two interventions. The first is a social norms campaign that will consist of community screenings, the provision of information about the benefits of education, and post-screening discussions structured around the aspirational and social norms messages of the edu-tainment screenings. The second intervention is a mobile-based edu-tainment intervention that consists of educational games and digital books designed for early grade reading. Both interventions will involve teachers to strengthen links with school activities and community leaders to increase the take-up of both interventions. While the social norms campaign will aim to change parents’ attitudes toward primary education, as well as increase school enrolment and retention rates; the mobile intervention will serve as a treatment enforcer aimed at improving reading and writing (half of treatment participants in community screenings will receive a pre-loaded mobile phone with digital books and games for learning). Both interventions will take place in North West Nigeria in the states of Kano and Jigawa.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Orozco, Victor and Ericka Gabriela Rascon Ramirez. 2020. "Movies, Mobile Gaming and Digital Books: Experimental Evaluation of Entertainment Education Interventions to Change Social Norms and Improve Educational Outcomes in Northern Nigeria ." AEA RCT Registry. November 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3619-1.1

Former Citation

Orozco, Victor and Ericka Gabriela Rascon Ramirez. 2020. "Movies, Mobile Gaming and Digital Books: Experimental Evaluation of Entertainment Education Interventions to Change Social Norms and Improve Educational Outcomes in Northern Nigeria ." AEA RCT Registry. November 18. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/3619/history/79952

Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The study will be a randomized controlled trial implemented in 120 communities, where a community is defined as an area within a two kilometer radius of a primary school. To evaluate the impact of the social norms campaign, half of the communities (60) will be randomly assigned to the Social Norms Campaign intervention and the other half (60) to the control group. Within each community, the implementation NGO will distribute invitations for screenings to all eligible households. To evaluate the mobile based intervention, in 30 of the 60 school catchment areas receiving the Social Norms Campaign, a subset of eligible households that attended the screenings will be offered phones with pre-loaded educational apps.

The impact evaluation will use three data sources. First, a census of households with 6 to 9 year old children will be conducted in each school catchment area. The sample for baseline and follow-up surveys will be drawn from this census. Second, baseline and follow-up surveys will collect (1) from parents/legal guardians - demographic data and standardized measures for aspirations, expectations, self-efficacy and attitudes related to education and (2) from children and siblings - a literacy and numeracy test. Third, collection of outcome data will be supplemented by administrative school data and monitoring data collected during the implementation of the interventions.

Intervention Start Date

2019-03-10

Intervention End Date

2019-06-09

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Enrolment Rates, Gender Parity in Enrolment Rates, Parental aspirations about school choices, expectations about school choices and parental self-efficacy beliefs about helping to learn, reading and writing skills of 6-9 year old children.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Social norms about education, early marriage and child labour. Parental preferences for education, early marriage and child labour.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

The study will be a randomized controlled trial implemented in 120 communities, where a community is defined as an area within a two kilometer radius of a primary school. To evaluate the impact of the social norms campaign, half of the communities (60) will be randomly assigned to the Social Norms Campaign intervention and the other half (60) to the control group. Within each community, the implementation NGO will distribute invitations for screenings to all eligible households. To evaluate the mobile based intervention, in 30 of the 60 school catchment areas receiving the Social Norms Campaign, a subset of eligible households that attended the screenings will be offered phones with pre-loaded educational apps.

The impact evaluation will use three data sources. First, a census of households with 6 to 9 year old children will be conducted in each school catchment area. The sample for baseline and follow-up surveys will be drawn from this census. Second, baseline and follow-up surveys will collect (1) from parents/legal guardians - demographic data and standardized measures for aspirations, expectations, self-efficacy and attitudes related to education and (2) from children and siblings - a literacy and numeracy test. Third, collection of outcome data will be supplemented by administrative school data and monitoring data collected during the implementation of the interventions.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Clustered Randomised Control trial were the random allocation of control and treatment school catchment areas has been done in office using Stata.

Randomization Unit

School catchment areas

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

120 school catchment areas

Sample size: planned number of observations

9,000 children, 9,000 siblings and 9,000 parents

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

30 school catchment areas for T1-Educational Entertainment using Movies.
30 school catchment areas for T2-Educational Entertainment using Movies and Mobile App reinforcer.
60 school catchment areas for C - Control group (No intervention)

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

Sample size calculations were conducted using the mean, standard error and estimated effect size for letter sound identification from the 2014 Reading and Access Research Activity (RARA) report1. This indicator was selected as it is one of the partial alphabetic skills that children must achieve prior to learning how to read. We calculated the intra cluster correlation from the Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey 2013 (DHS), using the enumeration area as a proxy for our clusters. Power calculations indicated that a sample size of 60 treatment catchment areas and 60 control (3,000 treatment households per intervention and 3,000 control households making a total of 9,000households) would be required to detect an effect size of 14 percentage points in letter sound identification at the child level. Our study has also statistical power to observed differences between treatments and control groups in listening comprehension and dictation skills. This results in 75 households per catchment area. In each household, a parent/legal guardian will be surveyed, while a child aged 6 to 9 and a sibling will be administered the literacy and numeracy tests. Both children will be randomly selected based on a listing that will be collected prior to baseline data collection. Our design will be stratified by gender of the selected 6-9-year-old child.

Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name

IRB Solutions

IRB Approval Date

2018-12-05

IRB Approval Number

IORG0007116

Analysis Plan

Movies, Mobile Gaming and Digital Books: Experimental Evaluation of Entertainment Education Interventions to Increase Parental Aspirations and Improve Educational Outcomes in Northern Nigeria

Pre-Trial

General Information

Locations

Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Registration Citation

Interventions

Primary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes

Experimental Design

Experiment Characteristics

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

Post-Trial

Study Withdrawal

Intervention

Data Publication

Program Files

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials