Experimental Evaluation of Pilot Program for Universal Music Education in Colombia

The intervention is twofold: our first implementing partner, DNA Music, is in charge of designing and implementing the program Producción y Emprendimiento Musical, that aims to identify and understand technical and creative processes involved in music production from a business perspective, with the ultimate goal of delivering young beneficiaries theoretical tools and basic practices aimed at entrepreneurship within the music industry. This curriculum will be delivered to 1,200 young participants between the ages of 14 and 28. In addition, the DecidoSer Campeón methodology will be implemented along with Producción y Emprendimiento Musical to other 1,2000 youths. This methodology is an innovative tool designed by ACDI/VOCA Colombia and certified by Deloitte in 2020, which generates improvements in life planning and soft skills aligned with the 21st century skills.

Both interventions will be implemented in four colombian cities, namely: Bogotá, Cali, Medellín and Barranquilla, and two additional rural municipalities: Quibdó and Turbo,

The program Producción y Emprendimiento Musical will mostly be in a virtual format, with the exception of practices that will be both virtual and in-person for some participants. It develops a training route that is made up of 5 modules with an intensity of 20 hours specially designed for students to achieve the expected competencies. Four main topics will be covered in the curricula: the music industry; music and audio production; entrepreneurship and a coaching session. The course in its online modality is self-directed, promoting autonomous learning, through case studies and learning. Students will be able to access additional digital tools and will have academic support from teachers/trainers 12 hours per day, if needed.

Similarly, the DecidoSer Campeón methodology will be conducted in-person and online over 40 hours, including the characterization and closing meetings for the training. It promotes 21st century skills in the youth by working on empathy, self-care, the creation of positive affective bonds, promoting leadership, agency, advocacy and participation.

The study will have an online recruitment phase, where candidates will be filtered out and selected according to a pre established eligibility criteria . The process will be as follows: the candidate will fill out a form, which will be programmed to filter out automatically the candidates that do not meet the eligibility criteria. For each city, there will be a maximum quota of students, so

With this in mind, we will conduct a randomized trial at the individual level. Approximately 4,000 eligible youths will be randomly assigned into three groups: Producción y Emprendimiento Musical beneficiaries, Producción y Emprendimiento Musical + DecidoSer Campeón beneficiaries and the control group. We will collect data from them in two moments: recruitment-baseline and endline.

2022-04-01

2022-09-01

➔ Knowledge and skills of music production
➔ Knowledge and skills for entrepreneurship
➔ Academic performance
➔ Soft Skills
➔ 21st century skills

For each specific outcome, we would like to measure and evaluate the following items:
➔ Knowledge and skills of music production: music theory knowledge; recording and production techniques knowledge. These items are specific of DNA’s curriculum.
➔ Knowledge and skills for entrepreneurship: financial knowledge; management, marketing and leadership skills; events development and execution. Certain soft skills such as resilience, self-confidence, teamwork and communication skills, and perseverance levels.
➔ Academic performance: IQ, performance in academic settings and performance in tests.
➔ Soft Skills: Perseverance levels; self-awareness; self-esteem; self-knowledge; leadership skills; empathy; self-confidence; resilience; self-care; building positive affecting bonds.
➔ 21st century skills: creativity, decision making, life-planning, innovation, teamwork and leadership skills, ability to set goals, problem solving abilities, digital literacy, and communication skills.

➔ Relieve of monetary poverty

➔ Relieve of monetary poverty: we would like to measure employment rates and income.

The study will have an online recruitment phase, where candidates will be filtered out and selected according to a pre established eligibility criteria . With this in mind, we will conduct a randomized trial at the individual level. Approximately 4,000 eligible youths will be randomly assigned into three groups: Producción y Emprendimiento Musical beneficiaries (1,200 individuals), Producción y Emprendimiento Musical + DecidoSer Campeón beneficiaries (1,200 individuals) and the control group (1,600 individuals). We will collect data from them in two moments: recruitment-baseline (only basic questions for characterization) and endline.

Recruitment and Baseline
In this stage, we will carry out an online recruitment form, where we will ask the candidates about key information to evaluate if they are eligible for the study and to perform randomization stratifying by key variables. After receiving consent to participate in the program and in the study, we will collect the initial information of the participants. We will inquire about socio demographic data, education, interest in music, digital abilities, access to electronic devices and time availability. This survey will take approximately 15 minutes.

After the recruitment-baseline data collection, IPA will conduct the randomization to assign participants to treatment or control groups. Both participants in the two treatment groups and in the control one will be contacted by IPA again for the endline. Along with implementing partners, IPA will monitor intensity of treatment.

Endline
For the endline, we plan to do either a phone or in-person survey to all participants. For this phase, IPA will hire, train, supervise and monitor a team of enumerators to conduct data collection to study participants. We will assess content knowledge and skills in topics covered through the music production and life skills curricula; 21st century skills, perceptions and stereotypes; and life plans.

Randomization will be done using the randtreat Stata command after the baseline phase.

Treatment was randomized at the individual level.

No

n/a

4,000 participants

T1: 1,200 participants receiving music training
T2: 1,200 participants receiving music training + life skills
C: 1,600 participants

The smallest mínimum detectable effect in the primary outcomes is 0.2 standard deviations.