Improving School Outcomes through Parental Involvement

Last registered on November 20, 2019
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Improving School Outcomes through Parental Involvement
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0005048
Initial registration date
November 17, 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
November 20, 2019, 2:58 PM EST

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

Locations

Country
Dominican Republic
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Carlos Schmidt-Padilla
Affiliation
University of California at Berkeley
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Catherine Rodriguez
PI Affiliation
Universidad de los Andes
PI Name
Daniel Morales
PI Affiliation
IDEICE & PUCMM

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2019-11-17
End date
2021-12-31
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
information provision, parental involvement, messaging groups
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
We study whether incentivizing parents to participate in a coordinated school information campaign, in coordination with the school's leadership team, can improve the school's performance and parental involvement in standardized tests. For a subset of private and public schools in the Dominican Republic that have previously formed their respective school's parents committee, we divide the schools into control and treatment groups with the aim of better informing parents about the school's performance in past exams. For the treatment schools, we call all the parents in the committees to ask for their consent to be included in a WhatsApp group. Through this channel we then inform parents about the school's performance and a workshops that the school leadership team is required to organize with teachers and parents to discuss school quality and an action plan help them improve in future tests.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Morales, Daniel, Catherine Rodriguez and Carlos Schmidt-Padilla. 2019. "Improving School Outcomes through Parental Involvement." AEA RCT Registry. November 20. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.5048-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2019-11-17
Intervention End Date
2021-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Our primary outcome measure is schools' performance in the national third and sixth grade exams (Evaluaciones Diagnósticas de 3ero and 6to, to be administered in 2020 and 2021, respectively).
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary outcomes in our study include: (i) school's adherence to the campaign's requisites (e.g., sending proof of the workshops, etc.), (ii) the creation of an action plan among school leadership, teachers, and parents,, (iii) whether parents seek help from or interact with the Ministry of Education, (iv) parental involvement measures in school (attendance to the informational workshop, discussion with other parents and teachers about school quality, discuss with their teachers about child’s own performance) and at home (follow the Ministry of Education tips, read with their children, help with homework) measured through a parents' survey responses administered in a follow-up phone call, (v) students' survey measures administered in parallel with the national exams. Most of our secondary outcomes aim to measure possible mechanism to explain the primary results.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
This project coincides with efforts by the Dominican Ministry of Education to increase principal-school leadership team-teacher-parent coordination and improve student performance in two national examinations for third and sixth graders: Evaluaciones Diagnósticas de 3o (April 2020) y 6to (May 2021). The Ministry of Education launched an information campaign on school quality based on emails sent to all schools’ principals with instructions to download their school’s "report card" based on previous performance in the national examinations. As part of this campaign, principals are required to coordinate with their leadership team, instructors and parents the analysis of the information and the elaboration of specific workshops as well as an action plan to improve school quality and the results in the next national exams. In this experiment, we look at the demand-side, and take a subset of schools in the campaign that had previously formed their parents' committees and inform parents about the "report card" and associated workshops.

Using a sample of 158 schools, we cross-randomize schools into treatment and control. In the treatment group, if the parents give consent, they are added to a WhatsApp messaging group of the school. Through this communication channel, we directly inform parents about the school's "report card" on previous national exams and the requirement that the Ministry asks to the principal to organize the informational workshops. We motivate them to assist to the workshop and follow the Ministry’s educational tips and the improvement plan the school designs.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Computer-based randomization.
Randomization Unit
Schools
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
158
Sample size: planned number of observations
158
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Group 1: Control group: 51 schools
Group 2: Reminder + added to messaging group: 107 schools
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Instituto Dominicano de Evaluación e Investigación de la Calidad Educativa (IDEICE)
IRB Approval Date
2019-10-24
IRB Approval Number
N/A
Analysis Plan

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