# **4 Study Design**

This study uses a randomized control trial design to measure impacts of the _Choices_ and _EMB_ programs, and to explore the pathways of the observed changes. The evaluation strategy builds on household-level randomization. Households could be randomly assigned into one of the following three groups: (1) _Choices Only_ : Adolescents invited to participate in _Choices_ training; (2) _Choices+EMB_ : Adolescents invited to participate in _Choices_ training and adult household members (typically parents) invited to participate in _EMB_ sessions; and (3) Control group: Adolescents not invited to the _Choices_ training.

For those households that were assigned to the _Choices+EMB_ treatment arm, the biological parents of the adolescents were invited to attend an _EMB_ session if they were living in the household. If there were no biological parents present in the household, any male and/or female primary caregiver was invited to attend _EMB_ sessions.

The randomization was stratified by community cluster, gender of the adolescent, school enrollment, and gender of the household head. There could be more than one eligible adolescent per household.<sup>26</sup> A household level randomization ensured that adolescents within a household were not assigned to different treatments which minimizes possible spillover or contamination effects. Our study design is not set up to capture or examine spillover effects which can arise if treated adolescents or parents share information and material from the trainings within their networks. If knowledge spillovers occur between treated and control households then our results are likely biased downward which means that our analysis will underestimate the program’s effect. Table A5 in the Appendix shows that gender attitudes in the control group are fairly stable over time from baseline, midline to endline which suggests that spillover effects are not a major factor.<sup>27</sup>

# **5 Data**

## **5.1 Survey Data**

In order to establish a sampling frame, the implementing partner conducted a community mapping exercise and identified project sites covering urban, peri-urban, rural and internally displaced persons (IDP) communities. For the evaluation, 33 community clusters were selected across the six project districts based on accessibility and population size.<sup>28</sup> The research team completed a census to list all the children aged 10-14 years in at least 400 households located within each of the targeted communities. The census also collected information on the adolescent’s willingness to participate in the _Choices_ training to predict program take-up. The listing also asked for parental consent to participate in the program

> 26Strata for mixed-gender or all enrolled in school were considered for the multiple adolescent households. 27The few attitudes that change over time may be driven by cohort effects as adolescents are 3 years older.

> 28The program team had originally identified 37 communities. However, following the household listing exercise, 5 communities which had fewer than 80 young adolescents listed were excluded. In addition, 5 of the larger communities were divided into 2 separate clusters each: Daami B, October IDP, Bacadweyn, Waaberi and Statehouse. Approximately 100 households were dropped from the census listing for having incorrect GPS coordinates and another 50 households did not provide study consent.

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