DOI: 10.3886/e176341v2
title: MPACT Fall 2017 - Fall 2018 Chicago

description: Math skill in early childhood is a key predictor of future academic achievement. Parental engagement in math learning contributes to the growth of children's math skills during this period. To help boost parent-child engagement in math activities and children's math skills, we conducted an RCT lasting 12 weeks with 758 low-income preschoolers (3-5 years old) and their primary caregivers. Parents were randomized into five groups: 1) a control group, and groups that received 2) a digital tablet with math apps for children; 3) analog math materials for parents to use with children, 4) analog math materials with weekly text messages to manage parents' present bias; and 5) analog math materials with weekly text messages to increase parents' growth mindset. Relative to the control group, neither the analog math materials alone nor the analog materials with growth mindset messages increased child math skills during the intervention period. However, the analog math materials combined with messaging to manage present bias and the digital tablet with math apps increased child math skills by about 0.20 standard deviations (p=.10) measured six months after the intervention. These two treatments also significantly increased parents' self-reported time engaged in math activities with their children.
description: No weight is included in the analysis.
description: Response Rates: For all three rounds, parents were recruited in one of two ways. In the eleven centers that allowed it, all eligible parents were automatically enrolled in MPACT but were given a chance to opt out of participation. Eighteen preschools did not permit opt-out recruitment. In these centers, research assistants recruited parents in person by approaching them at drop-off and pick-up time to ask if they would be willing to participate. Participation rates were high at both opt-out (99%) and opt-in (71%) preschool centers.<br><br>Specifically, we initially recruited 1,459 children. Eleven children dropped out before randomization. Of the remaining 1,448 children, 93 were siblings of enrolled children. We dropped siblings, leaving only one child per parent. After randomization, 61 children dropped out. This included children in a preschool that closed after randomization, and children that left the preschool in which they were enrolled before we were able to collect any data on either parents or children. Ten children remained enrolled in the preschool but were chronically absent; we were not able to collect data on either parents or children. Another 6 children could not be assessed reliably because of either cognitive or behavioral problems. This left 1,278 children who were assessed at baseline.
description: Presence of Common Scales: Likert-type scales are used for the pre- and post-experiment parental survey. We use the Woodcock-Johnson IV Applied Problems subtest for the baseline and follow-up assessments.
description: We randomized in two stages. In the first stage, we randomly assigned classrooms across preschools to either a treated or untreated group. We assigned 15 classrooms (5 in each round) to the untreated group. All sample children in these classrooms were assigned to the control group. In the second stage, we randomly assigned students in the remaining sample classrooms to the control group or one of the treatment groups.
description: Chicago parents whose primary language was either English or Spanish, who had a child enrolled in one of 29 subsidized preschool programs in Chicago, who were between the ages of three and four years old enrolled in a participating preschool.
description: cognitive assessment test; web-based survey;