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Evaluating Multilingual Early Reading as the Groundwork for Education: A Cluster-Randomized Trial in Kenya

Last registered on January 18, 2020

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Evaluating Multilingual Early Reading as the Groundwork for Education: A Cluster-Randomized Trial in Kenya
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0004425
Initial registration date
July 23, 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
July 24, 2019, 11:48 AM EDT

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

Last updated
January 18, 2020, 6:34 AM EST

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
World Bank

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
UC Berkeley
PI Affiliation
University of Michigan
PI Affiliation
Center for Global Development

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2017-01-01
End date
2020-01-01
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Encouraging Multilingual Early Reading as the Groundwork for Education (EMERGE) is a cluster-randomized evaluation of a program that provides Kenyan parents with illustrated children’s storybooks and modified dialogic reading training. The ongoing study employs a 73-community cluster-randomized design to examine the impact of a cost-effective parent education and storybook distribution program on preschool-aged children in rural Kenya. Within this main design, we use a within-cluster caregiver-level randomization to examine the impact of the language of the children's storybooks.

Registration Citation

Citation
Fernald, Lia et al. 2020. "Evaluating Multilingual Early Reading as the Groundwork for Education: A Cluster-Randomized Trial in Kenya." AEA RCT Registry. January 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.4425-1.1
Former Citation
Fernald, Lia et al. 2020. "Evaluating Multilingual Early Reading as the Groundwork for Education: A Cluster-Randomized Trial in Kenya." AEA RCT Registry. January 18. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/4425/history/60878
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Caregivers (typically mothers, fathers, or grandmothers) receive a two-to-three-hour modified dialogic reading training (also referred to as “book-sharing” – conveying the idea that reading to/with a young child can be an interactive process); they also receive a bundle of five illustrated storybooks. More details can be found in the baseline report, which is provided as an external link in the main trial information.
Intervention Start Date
2018-04-01
Intervention End Date
2018-06-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
child vocabulary, child literacy skills, reading/book-sharing frequency
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
child stimulation, caregiver time use, parental beliefs about children's abilities, parental self-efficacy
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The main EMERGE study is a cluster-randomized trial. Our research design, a two-stage randomization implemented in 73 rural communities in Nyando sub-county, Kenya. First, communities were randomly assigned to either the treatment group or the control group. Within treatment communities, caregivers were further randomized into two treatment arms: Luo-language storybooks or English-language storybooks. All caregivers (who completed the baseline) in treatment villages were invited to attend the dialogic reading training, which was conducted in Luo. Books were distributed after the training according to the caregiver-level randomization.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Stratified random assignment using Stata 14.2.
Randomization Unit
Two-stage randomization: community-level and household-level within treatment communities
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
73 communities, 2,013 households/caregivers
Sample size: planned number of observations
2,013 caregivers with ~2,500 children who were assessed at baseline and ~2,500 additional children (within the same households).
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
COMMUNITY-LEVEL RANDOMIZATION (STORYBOOKS VS. CONTROL):
Control group: 37 communities, 997 caregivers, 1,260 children assessed at baseline.
Treatment group: 36 communities, 1,016 caregivers, 1,267 children assessed at baseline.

HOUSEHOLD-LEVEL RANDOMIZATION WITHIN TREATMENT COMMUNITIES (LUO STORYBOOKS VS. ENGLISH STORYBOOKS):
Luo books: 508 caregivers, 635 children assessed at baseline.
English books: 508 caregivers, 632 children assessed at baseline.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
UC Berkeley Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects
IRB Approval Date
2015-05-29
IRB Approval Number
2014-09-6699
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

emerge-RR-2020-01-10.pdf

MD5: ba230058b6ee50ae49a22736c796e522

SHA1: 33cf3c402b7586f45c1f5e2ce1e399d7dee72b4f

Uploaded At: January 18, 2020

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