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

Last registered on January 22, 2020

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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 22, 2020, 5:06 PM EST

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

Locations

Country

Kenya

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Owen Ozier

Affiliation

World Bank

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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Lia Fernald

PI Affiliation

UC Berkeley

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Heather Knauer

PI Affiliation

University of Michigan

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Pamela Jakiela

PI Affiliation

Center for Global Development

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Additional Trial Information

Status

Completed

Start date

2017-01-01

End date

2020-01-01

Keywords

Education, Other

Additional Keywords

Early Childhood Development

JEL code(s)

I25, O15

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.

External Link(s)

Baseline report describing study design

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 22. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.4425-1.2000000000000002

Former Citation

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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

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)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB