Building trust through an SMS intervention to encourage attendance to early childhood services in Colombia

Last registered on January 14, 2022

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Building trust through an SMS intervention to encourage attendance to early childhood services in Colombia

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0008726

Initial registration date

January 05, 2022

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 07, 2022, 7:26 PM EST

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

Last updated

January 14, 2022, 9:15 AM EST

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

Locations

Country

Colombia

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Andres Ham

Affiliation

Universidad de los Andes

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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Juanita Ruiz Contreras

PI Affiliation

Universidad de los Andes

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Natalia Iriarte Tovar

PI Affiliation

Colombian Institute for Family Welfare (Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar – ICBF)

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Oscar Ivan Pineda Diaz

PI Affiliation

Colombian Institute for Family Welfare (Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar – ICBF)

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Juan Sebastian Cifuentes Troncoso

PI Affiliation

Colombian Institute for Family Welfare (Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar – ICBF)

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Maria Fernanda Rodriguez Camacho

PI Affiliation

Colombian Institute for Family Welfare (Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar – ICBF)

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2021-09-01

End date

2022-04-01

Keywords

Behavior, Education

Additional Keywords

early childhood education, text messaging, parental attitudes, pre-primary attendance

JEL code(s)

C93, D9, I12, I29

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

This intervention aims to determine whether SMS messages can encourage caregivers of young children (aged five or less) to increase their trust and use of in-person early childhood services provided by the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare (Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar - ICBF). Since the beginning of the pandemic, attendance for ICBF services fell substantially, with 78% of caregivers responding that the main barrier for attendance was fear of infection from COVID-19. For this trial, 719 ICBF service units nationwide were randomized into one control and two treatment groups, the first in which caregivers receive text messages designed to combat risk aversion and the second who receive messages that reinforce positive social norms that early childhood education is a civic duty. In total, 15,100 caregivers received 12 SMS messages during October and November 2021. This research will evaluate the impact of the intervention to reduce self-reported fear of COVID-19 infection among caregivers and the potential increase in attendance rates for ICBF’s early childhood education services.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Cifuentes Troncoso, Juan Sebastian et al. 2022. "Building trust through an SMS intervention to encourage attendance to early childhood services in Colombia." AEA RCT Registry. January 14. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.8726-1.1

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

This intervention aims to determine whether SMS messages can encourage caregivers of young children to increase their trust and use of in-person services provided by the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare (Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar - ICBF). Since the beginning of the pandemic and its ensuing lockdown measures, attendance for ICBF services fell substantially, with 78% of caregivers responding that the main barrier for attendance was fear of COVID-19. Two forms os SMS messages will be sent: the first aiming to combat risk aversion and the second to reinforce positive social norms with respect to education. The effectiveness of any SMS will be evaluated, as well as differences between the two types of text messages.

Intervention Start Date

2021-10-25

Intervention End Date

2021-11-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Total days of attendance per month, dummy indicator for attendance.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

The main constructed variable is the dummy for attendance. Given that ICBF has information on daily attendance, we can see an effect on mean number of days in which the child goes to in-person services. However, we want to observe any break points between attendance, e.g. from 0 to 1 days, from 1 to 2, days, and so on to determine if the intervention has a particular inflection point.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Responses to telephone survey on fear of covid and willingness to send their child to ICBF services, specifically: what is the main reason why your child is not attending in-person ICBF services? (multiple responses allowed)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

A telephone survey to all caregivers intends to measure the reasons for not attending before and after the intervention, in order to help understand the mechanisms that may explain any results in our primary outcomes. Note, we assume response rates between 20-50% on this survey given previous evidence on the effectiveness of these surveys.

Experimental Design

ICBF has 73,000 educational service units (SU) through which it provides early childhood services to children and pregnant women. In partnership with ICBF, we randomly selected 719 SU and randomly divided those units in three groups: control, treatment 1 and treatment 2. 244 service units were assigned to control group, 235 were assigned to treatment 1, and 240 were assigned to treatment 2. The first group receives text messages designed to combat risk aversion and the second receives SMS that reinforce positive social norms that education is a civic duty. These randomizations included clusters by macro regions, which guarantees that we have representative samples for all 4 macro-regions of Colombia (Amazonía-Orinoquía, Centro-Oriente, Norte, Pacífico-Occidente).

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Randomization done in office by a computer with pre-treatment administrative data.

Randomization Unit

Clusters. Educational centers, stratified across four macro-regions (Amazonía-Orinoquía, Centro-Oriente, Norte, and Pacifico-Occidente)

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

719 educational centers

Sample size: planned number of observations

15,100 children and between 25-50% of that number in the telephone surveys.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

244 educational centers in control, 235 educational centers in treatment 1 (risk aversion SMS), and 240 educational centers in treatment 2 (social norms SMS).

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

Days attended: Mean 2.39 (5.57). Minimum detecable effect with ICC of 0.65 estimated from pre-treatment data = 1.17 days Dummy for attendance (>2 days equals unity): Mean 0.17 (0.37). Minimum detecable effect with ICC of 0.72 estimated from pre-treatment data = 0.08 percentage points Willingness to return to in-person attendance (survey): Mean 0.62 (0.49). Minimum detecable effect with ICC of 0.22 estimated from pre-treatment data = 0.06 percentage points

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB