Publication: Do Information Technologies Improve Teenagers’ Sexual Education? Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Colombia
Loading...
Files in English
250 downloads
Published
2020-06
ISSN
1564-698X
Date
2021-12-09
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This study reports results from a randomized evaluation of a mandatory six-month Internet-based sexual education course implemented across public junior high schools in 21 Colombian cities. Six months after finishing the course, the study finds a 0.4 standard deviation improvement in knowledge, a 0.2 standard deviation improvement in attitudes, and a 55 percent increase in the likelihood of redeeming vouchers for condoms as a result of taking the course. The data provide no evidence of spillovers to control classrooms within treatment schools. However, the analysis provides compelling evidence that treatment effects are enhanced when a larger share of a student's friends also takes the course. The low cost of the online course along with the effectiveness the study documents suggests this technology is a viable alternative for improving sexual education in middle-income countries.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Gonzalez-Navarro, Marco; Chong, Alberto; Karlan, Dean; Valdivia, Martín. 2020. Do Information Technologies Improve Teenagers’ Sexual Education? Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Colombia. World Bank Economic Review. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36715 License: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
World Bank Economic Review
1564-698X
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
No results found.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication The Road to Results : Designing and Conducting Effective Development Evaluations(World Bank, 2009-12-01)The analytical, conceptual, and political framework of development is changing dramatically. The new development agenda calls for broader understandings of sectors, countries, development strategies, and policies. It emphasizes learning and continuous feedback at all phases of the development cycle. As the development agenda grows in scope and complexity, development evaluation follows suit. Development evaluator are moving away from traditional implementation and output-focused evaluation models toward results-based evaluation models, as the development community calls for results and embraces the millennium development goals. As the development community shifts its focus away from projects in order to comprehensively address country challenges, development evaluators are seeking methods with which to assess results at the country, sector, theme, policy, and even global levels. As the development community recognizes the importance of not only a comprehensive but also a coordinated approach to developing country challenges and emphasizes partnerships, development evaluators are increasingly engaged in joint evaluations. These joint evaluations, while advantageous in many respects, add to the complexity of development evaluation (OECD 2006). Additionally, development evaluators increasingly face the measurement challenge of determining the performance of an individual development organization in this broader context and of identifying its contribution. This text is intended as a tool for use in building development evaluation capacity. It aims to help development evaluators think about and explore the new evaluation architecture and especially to design and conduct evaluations that focus on results in meeting the challenges of development.Publication Girl Empower – A Gender Transformative Mentoring and Cash Transfer Intervention to Promote Adolescent Wellbeing(Elsevier, 2020-04)We evaluated Girl Empower – an intervention that aimed to equip adolescent girls with the skills to make healthy, strategic life choices and to stay safe from sexual abuse using a cluster-randomized controlled trial. Girl Empower led to sustained improvements in several important domains, including sexual and reproductive health, but did not reduce sexual violence among the target population.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication (Ineffective) Messages to Encourage Recycling(Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2015-01)There is growing interest in using messaging to drive prosocial behaviors, which contribute to investment in public goods. We worked with a leading nongovernmental organization in Peru to randomize nine different prorecycling messages that were crafted on the basis of best practices, prior evidence, and theories of behavioral change. Different variants emphasized information on environmental or social benefits, social comparisons, social sanctions, authority, and reminders. None of the messages had significant effects on recycling behavior. However, reducing the cost of ongoing participation by providing a recycling bin significantly increased recycling among enrolled households.Publication Childcare and Mothers’ Labor Market Outcomes in Lower- and Middle-Income Countries(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-11)Improving women’s labor force participation and the quality of their employment can boost economic growth and support poverty and inequality reduction; thus, it is highly pertinent for the development agenda. However, most systematic reviews on female labor market outcomes and childcare, which can arguably improve these outcomes, are focused on developed countries. This paper reviews 22 studies that plausibly identify the causal impact of institutional childcare on maternal labor market outcomes in lower- and-middle-income countries. All but one study finds positive impacts on the extensive or intensive margin of maternal labor market outcomes, which aligns with findings for developed countries. The paper further analyzes aspects of childcare design, including hours, ages of children, and coordination with other childcare services that may increase the impacts on maternal labor market outcomes. The paper concludes with a discussion of directions for future research.