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“Mentorship, Entrepreneurship, and Labor Market Opportunity in Saudi Arabia.”

Last registered on July 09, 2020

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
“Mentorship, Entrepreneurship, and Labor Market Opportunity in Saudi Arabia.”
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0003956
Initial registration date
February 28, 2019

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
March 02, 2019, 12:58 PM EST

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

Last updated
July 09, 2020, 2:36 PM EDT

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University of Chicago

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Harvard Kennedy School

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2019-04-01
End date
2020-12-31
Secondary IDs
Abstract
This study aims to understand the effect of role modelling and mentoring support on student and job seeker outcomes including employability, entrepreneurship, and well-being.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Gonzalez, Alessandra and Inmaculada Macias-Alonso. 2020. "“Mentorship, Entrepreneurship, and Labor Market Opportunity in Saudi Arabia.”." AEA RCT Registry. July 09. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3956-2.2
Former Citation
Gonzalez, Alessandra and Inmaculada Macias-Alonso. 2020. "“Mentorship, Entrepreneurship, and Labor Market Opportunity in Saudi Arabia.”." AEA RCT Registry. July 09. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/3956/history/72062
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention (Hidden)
In this study I work with local Saudi universities, an NGO, and a vocational college in order to collect survey data to understand how both male and female Saudi college students and job seekers can benefit from a Mentoring Network.
Methods include:
 A baseline survey of minimum 500 male and 500 female Saudi college students’ prospective career plans and recruitment into a Mentoring Network. [an informational intervention will be embedded in this survey to understand framing effects for recruitment into the Mentoring Network]
 Outreach to alumni and other university affiliates to join as Mentors on the Mentoring Network.
 Researchers will work with university administrators to select student and graduate participants for the pilot phase of the project (non-selected participants will be kept as the control group for the first year) and to match students and alumni mentors based on randomized criteria including employment status, college of graduation, and entrepreneurship status.
-An event where families and mentors are invited to meet will be held during the year of the intervention [and attendance will be taken]
-Focus Groups will be conducted to explore mechanisms of impact of the Mentoring Network and evaluate the Mentoring Network.
 Weekly surveys to establish frequency and quality of Mentoring Contact over 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and 12 month intervals.
 Employability, Entrepreneurship, and Well-being Outcomes Surveys at 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and 12 months to evaluate the effect of the program for participants relative to those who did not participate in the program this year.

The collaboration with the NGO involves baseline, midline and endline surveys of around 200 high-school girls from disadvantaged backgrounds. Based on baseline findings (high interest in entrepreneurship), the midline survey is going to include an information treatment intervention regarding the number of on-line registered businesses owned by women in 2019. Also based on baseline findings (lack of educational and career support from male relatives), focus groups with male relatives and girls will be conducted to gather information that can inform a mentoring within households treatment for the endline survey.
Intervention Start Date
2019-04-01
Intervention End Date
2020-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Whether students in the Mentoring Network, compared to those who were not selected into the Mentoring Network:
-Are more likely to be employed
-If already were employed are more likely to remain employed
-If had entrepreneurial aspirations are more likely to maintain those aspirations or start their own business
-If job seeker already owned their own business, if they are more likely to still have their business open after the period of the intervention.

Whether high-school students treated, compared to those who were not treated:
- Are more likely to graduate high-school
- Are more likely to pursue further studies
- Are more likely to express entrepreneurial aspirations
- Are more likely to express interest in being employed
- Are more likely to report good relationships with their male relatives
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
I expect mentees whose families attended the Mentoring Network event to have greater effects of the mentoring network (through a channel of family/household support of the mentoring relationship)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Students and job-seekers will be recruited to a Mentoring Network through a baseline survey which has an information intervention to incentivize recruitment to the Network. Students who opt into the Network will be randomly selected into the Network and matched with a Mentor. Employment, entrepreneurship, and well-Being outcomes will be assessed through intermittent surveys in order to evaluate the impact of membership into a Mentoring Network on employment, entrepreneurship, and well-being outcomes.
High-school students were recruited through a baseline survey. In the midline, high-school students will be randomly treated with an entrepreneurship information intervention. Interest in employment, entrepreneurship, and well-being outcomes will be assessed in the endline survey.
Experimental Design Details
Where possible, aspects of the Mentor will be also randomized such as whether the Mentor is employed, an entrepreneur, had the same college major, etc. This will be done to explore alternative explanations for the impact of Mentorship aside from the Network effect such as role-modeling, sponsorship, and information provision.
Together with our NGO partner, we will randomize an information treatment signalling female entrepreneurship to see if this intervention leads students to immediate signing up for an entrepreneurship workshop and later affects their likelihood of graduating high-school and accessing the labor market.
Randomization Method
Randomization will be done in office by a computer.
Randomization Unit
Randomization into the network and then assignment to a mentor will occur at the individual level.

Randomization of treatment for high-school girls will occur at the individual level.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
We plan to recruit 1000 students or job seekers (500 male, 500 female) and 200 Mentors.

We recruited 200 high-school girls.
Sample size: planned number of observations
We hope to have 1000 students and 200 Mentors filling out baseline surveys, weekly meeting data for one year (52 short surveys), and outcomes surveys at 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and 12 months. We have 200 high-school girls surveyed in three waves: baseline, midline and endline.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
We hope to have 500 students/job seekers in the Treatment group, 500 in Control; 150 Mentors in Treatment and 50 in Control.

We hope to have around 100 high-school girls in the treatment condition and about 100 in the control condition.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Previous studies on mentoring ranged from 400 to 1150 participants needed to see a treatment effects of mentoring and with my previous experience in email recruitment, I plan to work with university partners to email information intervention surveys electronically to the entire student listserve and existing databases. If a standard 4% response rate is expected from email solicitations, we would need to email at least 29,000 students to obtain the required sample size to see a treatment effect. Luckily the universities I am working with have at least this many students enrolled and I expect to detect treatment effects through our recruitment efforts.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Chicago IRB
IRB Approval Date
2019-02-13
IRB Approval Number
IRB19-0087

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials