Increasing Football for Development Program’s Registration and Attendance Rates

Last registered on June 23, 2020

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Increasing Football for Development Program’s Registration and Attendance Rates

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0005508

Initial registration date

March 01, 2020

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, 2020, 3:40 PM EST

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

Last updated

June 23, 2020, 4:27 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country

Qatar

Region

MENA

Primary Investigator

Name

Fadi Makki

Affiliation

B4Development Foundation

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2020-03-02

End date

2020-12-31

Keywords

Labor, Welfare

Additional Keywords

Sports for development, football for development

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Abstract

Football for development program uses football training to introduce many of the key issues around inclusion and has a goal to increase participants’ self-awareness and awareness of others, confidence, social skills and their sense of belonging and self-worth. On these pitches, football plays an important role in making teams of people from different backgrounds. The program promotes values of universal respect and helping those who are vulnerable or isolated to transform their situations. This program is being delivered to schools' students as part of their PE classes, and to migrant workers who sign up for the program in different worker accommodation compounds in Qatar.
Each cycle has 10 sessions delivered in one-hour football sessions of around 15-20 players per coach, and it will teach workers social skills through football tactics, culminating with a tournament. Despite efforts, it has been difficult to increase registration and attendance rates. The aim of this study is to test whether being exposed to a behaviorally informed recruitment flyer increases registration rates, compared to a standard flyer. Additionally, we will test whether sending registered participants a weekly text reminding them of their upcoming training session will increase attendance rates, compared to no text.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Makki, Fadi. 2020. "Increasing Football for Development Program’s Registration and Attendance Rates." AEA RCT Registry. June 23. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.5508-1.1

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The intervention will target worker accommodation compounds participating in a football for development program. The intervention is designed as an internal evaluation to improve the delivery of an existing football program. As mentioned earlier, the aim of the intervention is to increase program’s registration and attendance rate.

To tackle the behavioral barriers that have prevented workers from registering for the program and following through with the program until its completion, the first phase of the intervention will consist of increasing the salience of recruitment flyers by reducing the amount of text, using attractive visuals, using call for action and translating the flyers into the three most spoken languages in the camp to make the content more accessible and relatable to workers. The second phase of the intervention will consist of a brief text message sent to registered workers randomly assigned to the treatment group to serve as a reminder and to overcome absences caused by the hassle and cognitive overload it takes workers to remember the date, time and venue of each session.

Intervention Start Date

2020-03-02

Intervention End Date

2020-12-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Outcome of interest in Phase 1 is the following:
1) Enrollment into program
This variable will assess the number of workers that signed up for the program through registering with their camp bosses.
Outcomes of interest in Phase 2 are the following:
1) Successful completion of the program
This variable will assess the number of workers that have successfully finished the program, i.e. the number of workers that have attended and completed all 10 sessions of the program.
2) Attendance rate of each session
This variable will assess the attendance rate of each of the ten sessions of the program. This is a binary variable which measures whether the registered workers have attended a certain session or not. Therefore, for those workers that have not attended the session, a negative response will be recorded.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Phase 1
The intervention involves a randomization methodology that allocates workers into treatment and control groups.
• Control Condition: Standard flyers posted in common areas of the accommodation buildings.
• Treatment Condition: Behaviorally informed flyers posted in common areas of the accommodation buildings.

Phase 2
Once the final list of registered workers is done, registered workers will be randomly assigned to either control or treatment group, i.e. randomization will be done at an individual level.
• The treatment group will receive a brief text message the day before sessions reminding them of the date, time and venue of the session.
• Workers in the control group will not receive any text.
• Workers who did not register will not be targeted, i.e. they will not be considered as part of the sample.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

For both phases, randomization will be done in the office, by a computer software.

Randomization Unit

Randomization will be done at individual level for both phases (building in Phase 1 and worker in Phase 2).

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

55 buildings

Sample size: planned number of observations

Phase 1 will target 45 000 workers living in 55 buildings. Historical data indicates that around 80-200 workers register for each cycle of the program.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

For phase 1, 55 buildings in which 45 000 people live will be randomly assigned to treatment or control group (27 vs 28)
For phase 2, 40-100 workers will be allocated to the control group and 40-100 workers will be allocated to the treatment group, depending on the number of the registered workers in Phase 1.

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

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB