AEA RCT Registry

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Strengthening School Management in a School Reopening Context. Evidence from Peru

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0007955

Initial registration date

July 14, 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

July 15, 2021, 10:10 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country

Peru

Region

Latin America

Primary Investigator

Name

Lelys Dinarte

Affiliation

The World Bank

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Ciro Avitabile

PI Affiliation

The World Bank

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Renata Lemos

PI Affiliation

The World Bank

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2021-05-01

End date

2021-12-30

Keywords

Education

Additional Keywords

School Management, School Reopening, COVID-19, Principals Training, Peru

JEL code(s)

I24, I25, I28, M53

Secondary IDs

Abstract

Many developing countries have faced prolonged closure of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent evidence has shown that school closures during a public health crisis can cause short-term detrimental effects on students’ achievement (Bandiera et al 2020; Archibong and Annan 2020). School closures can also be negatively associated with students’ outcomes in the long term. Estimations indicate that the average current student might expect around 3% lower career earnings, under the most optimistic scenario in which schools immediately returned to 2019 performance levels (Hanushek and Woessmann, 2020).

The quality of school leadership and the practices that school leaders implement are potentially important areas of intervention that can help mitigate the negative and long-lasting effects of school closures and prepare for the process of school reopening. Prior work has documented a positive relationship between the quality of day-to-day school management practices and student outcomes (Bloom et al. 2015, Dobbie and Fryer 2015, Fryer 2017, Leaver et al, 2019, Lemos et al, 2021) and also shown that school leaders “matter” (Coelli and Green, 2011; Lavy and Boiko, 2017; Walsh and Dotter, 2020; Munoz and Prem, 2020).

Considering the relevance of effective school leadership in episodes of crisis, this project aims to rigorously explore the impact of school operations management on students’ outcomes and the mechanisms explaining these results. We explore this analysis in the context of Peru, a country with important underlying weaknesses in school management. In partnership with the MoE, this project will experimentally evaluate the impact of a training program designed by the NGO Global School Leaders and adapted to the local context.

The program aims to increase school attendance and reduce dropout in a school reopening context through an improvement of principals’ skills related to school organization and communication with teachers and parents. It also aims to improve principals' mental health. Specifically, the intervention attempts to indirectly improve teacher’s motivation and performance and to change parents’ (and teachers’) perception of risk in sending their children back to school by training and supporting school principals' school operational management practices.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Avitabile, Ciro, Lelys Dinarte and Renata Lemos. 2021. "Strengthening School Management in a School Reopening Context. Evidence from Peru." AEA RCT Registry. July 15. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.7955-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Interventions

Intervention(s)

In this study, we study the intervention Leadership for Renewal (LFR). It consists of a training program developed by the NGO Global School Leaders (GSL) that aims to enable school principals to lead effectively through this crisis, beginning with preparing for school re-opening. The LFR baseline program aims to directly affect school organization and structural communication with parents.

The research team worked with GSL to ensure the program is adapted to the local context and more focused on modules that will improve school organization in coordination with guidance from health authorities and improve communication with parents in a consistent and structured manner. In this sense, the adjusted program includes a total of six mentor-led sessions and three learning circles. The mentor-led sessions are the following: (i) leadership for wellbeing, (ii) community support, (iii) preparing the school for reopening, (iv) preparing staff for reopening, (v) ITC tools for management, (vi) tools for communication.

The intervention will follow a cascade approach. As the first step, in coordination with GSL and The Varkey Foundation, a number of local staff (UGEL specialists) will be trained to become program coaches. Then, these trained coaches will deliver the training to the group of principals working in schools that will be assigned to the treatment group. The content will be delivered through intensive virtual workshops aimed at building school principals’ skills for improving teaching and learning. All sessions will be covered in approximately 2 weeks. Then, during the learning circles, principals will be able to discuss their reopening plans, particularly those related to school organization and communication with families. Each learning circle has a duration of 1 hour.

Intervention Start Date

2021-05-28

Intervention End Date

2021-09-10

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

At the school level: Probability of reopening.
At the course level: school attendance.
At the principal level: attendance, mental health, communication, and management skills
At the teacher level: attendance, mental health

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

At the principal level: expectations/beliefs, perceptions of risk.
At the teacher level: expectations/beliefs, perceptions of risk, and perceptions about principals' communication and management skills.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Using a sample of 2,005 schools, we have randomly assigned them to the following groups:
- Treatment group (T): 1,123 schools will be randomly allocated to receive the training from the UGEL specialists. They will also participate in an intensive data collection activity.
- Control (C): 580 schools will be randomly assigned to a control group. They will not receive the training from the UGEL specialists but will participate in the intensive data collection activity.
- Pure control (PC): To address concerns about the Hawthorne effects--that is, principals and teachers can change their behavior in terms of how they report the data due to the intensity of the data collection process--we will randomly assign 302 schools to a pure control group that will neither receive the training nor will report any data. From these schools, we will collect administrative data on their reopening status.

Experimental Design Details

Using a sample of 2,005 schools, we have randomly assigned them to the following groups:
- Treatment group (T): 1,123 schools will be randomly allocated to receive the training from the UGEL specialists. They will also participate in an intensive data collection activity.
- Control (C): 580 schools will be randomly assigned to a control group. They will not receive the training from the UGEL specialists but will participate in the intensive data collection activity.
- Pure control (PC): To address concerns about the Hawthorne effects--that is, principals and teachers can change their behavior in terms of how they report the data due to the intensity of the data collection process--we will randomly assign 302 schools to a pure control group that will neither receive the training nor will report any data. From these schools, we will collect administrative data on their reopening status.

Randomization Method

Randomization will be done in-office by a computer using a self-coded script developed by the researchers.

Randomization Unit

The randomization unit will be schools.

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

2,005 schools

Sample size: planned number of observations

Principals: 2,005 Teachers: 4,010

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

1,123 schools training
580 schools control group
302 schools pure control group

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

With this sample size, we expect to identify an MDE of 0.078SD for the intervention and 0.09SD for the Hawthorne effect.

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name

Human Subjects Committee for Innovations for Poverty Action IRB-USA

IRB Approval Date

2021-05-21

IRB Approval Number

15718

Analysis Plan

Strengthening School Management in a School Reopening Context. Evidence from Peru

Pre-Trial

General Information

Locations

Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Registration Citation

Sponsors

Interventions

Primary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes

Experimental Design

Experiment Characteristics

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

Post-Trial

Study Withdrawal

Intervention

Data Publication

Program Files

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials