The Impact of Early Childhood Education in North Dakota - A Feasibility Study

Last registered on February 09, 2022
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The Impact of Early Childhood Education in North Dakota - A Feasibility Study
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0008746
Initial registration date
December 23, 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
December 27, 2021, 10:41 PM EST

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

Last updated
February 09, 2022, 10:32 AM EST

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Jesse Bruhn
Affiliation
Brown University
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Emily Oster
PI Affiliation

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2022-02-01
End date
2023-09-01
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
There is significant policy interest in extending early childhood education in the US, but important gaps remain in our knowledge of the likely impact of such expansions. The North Dakota state legislature recently passed a bill authorizing a series of block-grants that will be released over the next 4 years to improve subsidized early childhood education (ECE) in the state. Our project proposes to partner with the state to evaluate these programs. This study is a pilot designed to assess the feasibility of our research design by exploring power and cost.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Bruhn, Jesse and Emily Oster. 2022. "The Impact of Early Childhood Education in North Dakota - A Feasibility Study." AEA RCT Registry. February 09. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.8746
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2022-08-01
Intervention End Date
2023-08-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
- Application behavior
- Take-up behavior
- Child outcomes (Non-cognitive skills, performance in school, etc.)
- Parental outcomes (LFP, time-use, etc.)
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
The primary purpose of this feasibility study is to learn more about power to explore application and take-up behavior among families. If it looks like our interventions will have enough power, we plan to register a second, full-fledged RCT that will describe our other key outcomes (child and parent) in more detail.

Finally, we note that if our interventions meant to encourage application behavior show promising results during the trial, but we ultimately conclude that a full-fledged RCT is infeasible (either due to cost or issues related to take-up), we would plan to publish these results anyway since we believe they are of independent interest.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Intervention (1): Early Childhood education providers will randomize offers of admission to pre-K applicants when they are oversubscribed.

Intervention (2): Our team will use information from the state medicaid data-based on families eligible for pre-K subsidies to conduct forms of outreach designed to induce families into applying for pre-K spots. Arms of this intervention may include glossy mailers, phone calls, text messages, and face-to-face outreach.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Intervention (1): Providers will send us lists of applicants and we will randomize the order in which they are required to make admissions offers.

Intervention (2): We are still designing this.
Randomization Unit
Intervention (1): Across families within provider.

Intervention (2): We are still designing this.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Part of the purpose of the feasibility study is to learn sample sizes, so we do not know at this time.
Sample size: planned number of observations
Part of the purpose of the feasibility study is to learn sample sizes, so we do not know at this time.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Part of the purpose of the feasibility study is to learn sample sizes, so we do not know at this time.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Part of the purpose of the feasibility study is to learn sample sizes, so we do not know at this time.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

feasibility_study_analysis_plan.pdf

MD5: f4d2793f2b725c8dc7a8d56c083228a9

SHA1: 0188140b12f4c03c4d89cdde0b874f1ff5910ed7

Uploaded At: February 09, 2022