Cultivating Youth's Empathy through Parental Involvement: Experimental Evidence from China

Last registered on January 22, 2021
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Cultivating Youth's Empathy through Parental Involvement: Experimental Evidence from China
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0007079
Initial registration date
January 22, 2021

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
January 22, 2021, 2:32 PM EST

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

Locations

Country
China
Region
Zhejiang Province

Primary Investigator

Name
Yiming Xia
Affiliation
RIEM,Southwestern University of Finance and Economics
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Naibao Zhao
PI Affiliation
RIEM, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics
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PI Name
Qinyou Hu
PI Affiliation
Rice University
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PI Name
Flavio Cunha
PI Affiliation
Rice University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2021-01-11
End date
2021-08-31
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
Empathy, Parenting, Mental health
JEL code(s)
I20
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Low empathy becomes prevalent and it is associated with bad peer relationships, such as alienation and even bullying behaviors in the school. Utilizing the context of two large middle schools in urban China, we first design survey instruments to elicit students’ empathy skills, bullying tendency and depression tendency. We further design a novel psychological intervention that is cost effective to improve students’ empathy skills with their parents. The intervention mainly composes of a series of parent-child activities that are daily based. We expect a reasonable take-up rate by parents and, through improving empathy and parent-child relationship, the students become more socially desirable in the class.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Cunha, Flavio et al. 2021. "Cultivating Youth's Empathy through Parental Involvement: Experimental Evidence from China." AEA RCT Registry. January 22. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.7079-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
In the treatment arm, parents will receive monthly task notifications to be completed with students. The tasks include a series of parent-child activities on empathy and prosociality related topics. The tasks will last for 4 months. Each task will take no longer than 3 hours.
Intervention Start Date
2021-03-01
Intervention End Date
2021-07-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Empathy measure, Mental health, Classroom environment, Bullying behaviors, Prosocial behaviors
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Empathy measure includes perspective thinking and empathetic concern; we use CES-D to measure mental health and depression; students' evaluation of the classroom environment; we use self-reported and cross-reported bullying behaviors

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Prosocial behaviors, Test scores, Task completion status, Time spent with parents, and Bullying and empathy knowledge
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The targeted population of this study is middle school students (7th-8th grade) and their parents in 2 middle schools in China. We collect baseline survey data to understand the prior knowledge about empathy and bully among students and their parents. Surveys will be delivered via online questionnaires. We then randomly assign half of the classes of students into treatment and the other half into control groups. After the 4-month intervention, we will collect the end-of-semester survey to all the students and parents.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
By a computer using Microsoft Excel
Randomization Unit
classroom
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
48 classes
Sample size: planned number of observations
2,200 students
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
24 classes (1,100 students and their parents) control, 24 classes (1,100 students and their parents) treatment
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Ethics Committee of RIEM at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics
IRB Approval Date
2020-11-05
IRB Approval Number
IRB-FY2021-89
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