IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/edfpol/v16y2021i2p209-232.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Too Little or Too Much? Actionable Advice in an Early-Childhood Text Messaging Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Kalena E. Cortes

    (The Bush School of Government and Public Service Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843)

  • Hans Fricke

    (Graduate School of Education Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305)

  • Susanna Loeb

    (Annenberg Institute for School Reform Brown University Providence, RI 02912)

  • David S. Song

    (Graduate School of Education Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305)

  • Benjamin N. York

    (ParentPowered Technologies Belmont, CA 94002)

Abstract

Text-message-based parenting programs have proven successful in improving parent engagement and preschoolers’ literacy development. This study seeks to identify mechanisms of the overall effect of such programs. It investigates whether actionable advice alone drives previous studies’ results and whether additional texts of actionable advice improve program effectiveness. The findings provide evidence that text messaging programs can supply too little or too much information. A single text per week is not as effective at improving parenting practices as a set of three texts that also include information and encouragement, but a set of five texts with additional actionable advice is also not as effective as the three-text approach. The results on children's literacy development depend on the child's pre-intervention literacy skills. For children in the lowest quarter of the pretreatment literacy assessments, providing one example of an activity improves literacy scores by 0.19 standard deviations less than providing three texts. Literacy scores of children in higher quarters are marginally higher with only one tip per week than with three tips per week. We find no positive effects of increasing to five texts per week.

Suggested Citation

  • Kalena E. Cortes & Hans Fricke & Susanna Loeb & David S. Song & Benjamin N. York, 2021. "Too Little or Too Much? Actionable Advice in an Early-Childhood Text Messaging Experiment," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 16(2), pages 209-232, Spring.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:edfpol:v:16:y:2021:i:2:p:209-232
    DOI: 10.1162/edfp_a_00304
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1162/edfp_a_00304
    Download Restriction: Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1162/edfp_a_00304?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ajzenman, Nicolas & Luna, Laura Becerra & Hernández-Agramonte, Juan Manuel & Lopez Boo, Florencia & Perez Alfaro, Marcelo & Vásquez-Echeverría, Alejandro & Mateo Diaz, Mercedes, 2022. "A behavioral intervention to increase preschool attendance in Uruguay," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    2. Amaral, Sofia & Dinarte-Diaz, Lelys & Dominguez, Patricio & Perez-Vincent, Santiago M., 2024. "Helping families help themselves: The (Un)intended impacts of a digital parenting program," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    3. Doss, Christopher & Fricke, Hans & Loeb, Susanna & Doromal, Justin B., 2022. "Engaging girls in math: The unequal effects of text messaging to help parents support early math development," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    4. Hernández-Agramonte, Juan Manuel & Namen, Olga & Näslund-Hadley, Emma & Biehl, Maria Loreto, 2024. "Supporting early childhood development remotely: Experimental evidence from SMS messages," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    5. Rebecca Bailey & Natasha Raisch & Sonya Temko & Britt Titus & Jonah Bautista & Tahirat Omolara Eniola & Stephanie M. Jones, 2021. "Innovations in Social and Emotional Learning Research and Practice: Building from Evidence and Applying Behavioral Insights to the Design of a Social and Emotional Learning Intervention in Northeast N," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-21, July.
    6. Cortes, Kalena E. & Fricke, Hans & Loeb, Susanna & Song, David S. & York, Benjamin N., 2023. "When behavioral barriers are too high or low – How timing matters for text-based parenting interventions," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    7. Noam Angrist & Peter Bergman & Moitshepi Matsheng, 2022. "Experimental evidence on learning using low-tech when school is out," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(7), pages 941-950, July.
    8. Mateo-Berganza Díaz, María Mercedes & Becerra, Laura & Hernández Agramonte, Juan Manuel & Lopez Boo, Florencia & Pérez Alfaro, Marcelo & Vasquez Echeverria, Alejandro, 2020. "Nudging Parents to Increase Preschool Attendance in Uruguay," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 10893, Inter-American Development Bank.
    9. Jabbari, Jason & Roll, Stephen & Bufe, Sam & McKay, Jessica, 2022. "“Take my word for it”: Group Texts and Testimonials Enhance State and Federal Student Aid Applications," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:edfpol:v:16:y:2021:i:2:p:209-232. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.