Supporting early childhood development remotely: Experimental evidence from SMS messages

Juan Manuel Hernández-Agramonte, Olga Namen, Emma Näslund-Hadley and Maria Loreto Biehl

Journal of Development Economics, 2024, vol. 166, issue C

Abstract: Using a randomized field experiment in Costa Rica, we estimate the effect of providing parents of preschool students with regular text messages offering ways to engage their children in educational activities at home. After 15 weeks of intervention, the cognitive skills of children whose families were assigned to the program were 0.11–0.12 standard deviations higher than the control group. We find suggestive evidence that the effect was driven by an increase in parents’ involvement as they conducted the activities proposed in the text message campaign.

Keywords: Remote education; Early childhood development; Text messages; Parenting; COVID-19; Parental networks; Parental school involvement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 I21 J13 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:166:y:2024:i:c:s0304387823001578

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2023.103201

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