A story-based programme to support foundation learning at school entry
| ISRCTN | ISRCTN21290099 |
|---|---|
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN21290099 |
| Secondary identifying numbers | SIP23 |
- Submission date
- 21/08/2023
- Registration date
- 25/08/2023
- Last edited
- 24/08/2023
- Recruitment status
- No longer recruiting
- Overall study status
- Completed
- Condition category
- Other
Plain English summary of protocol
Background and study aims
A foundation of strong oral language cascades to improved reading and writing in school, and beyond, which is why boosting children’s language skills at school entry is so important. A focus on language skills is even more critical in multilingual settings where children’s home language differs from the school language. The Sirsa Intervention Project (SIP) is set up to evaluate a 14-week-long Hindi story-based programme designed to improve children’s oral language. The main goal is to examine the effectiveness of a Hindi oral language programme specifically tailored for children at school entry.
Who can participate?
Children enrolled in Balvatika (early childhood centres) and Grade 1 classes. These children are usually aged between 5 and 6 years, but the actual lower bound might be around 4 years and the upper bound around 7 years. It is also not unusual for children older than 7 to be part of these classes as Balvatika and Grade 1 have become the preferred points of entry into the school system, at least for the first six months of the school year, for early grades children arriving from other regions. All children (female and male) in the classes randomly selected for the study will participate unless they opt out.
What does the study involve?
The story-based programme will be delivered in Balvatika/Grade 1 classrooms by their usual teachers following a 2-3-day training programme. Pupils in each participating class within 20 randomly selected schools will receive the programme for 30 minutes every school day for 14 weeks, between August and November. After 14 weeks, the oral language skills of children who experienced the programme will be compared to those of similar children in other 20 schools in a business-as-usual regimen. Oral language includes measurements of expressive vocabulary, receptive vocabulary, listening comprehension and sentence repetition, collected at the start and the end of the study.
What are the possible benefits and risks of participating?
A potential benefit of participating is that the intervention implements the stated curriculum for oral language through a more structured programme; a potential risk of participating is that the programme may be experienced as more intensive than the business-as-usual programme. This research holds value not only for the Hindi setting in India but also similar other multilingual contexts in low- and middle-income countries. A further potential benefit of the study is that it could provide practical information for
the implementation of an oral language programme at scale.
Where is the study run from?
The study is run by the University of Oxford (UK) in partnership with The Promise Foundation (IN) and the Language and Learning Foundation (IN)
When is the study starting and how long is it expected to run for?
January 2023 to December 2023
Who is funding the study?
The UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), in partnership with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) (UK)
Who is the main contact?
Sonali Nag, sonali.nag@education.ox.ac.uk
Contact information
Principal Investigator
Department of Education
University of Oxford
15 Norham Gardens
Oxford
OX2 6PY
United Kingdom
 ORCID ID |
0000-0002-9557-4431 |
|---|---|
| Phone | +44 (0)1865 274039 |
| sonali.nag@education.ox.ac.uk |
Scientific
Anna Watts Building
Woodstock Rd
Oxford
OX2 6GG
United Kingdom
| ORCID ID |
0000-0003-0836-3861 |
|---|---|
| Phone | +44 (0)1865 271444 |
| maggie.snowling@psy.ox.ac.uk |
Public
The Promise Foundation
Site No.231
Cozy Home Layout
Sompur Gate
B. Hosahalli Road
Sarjapura
Anekal Taluk
Bangalore
562125
India
| Phone | +91 (0)80 27823524 |
|---|---|
| garulmani@t-p-f.org |
Public
D-26, South Extension-Part II
New Delhi
110049
India
| Phone | +91 (0)11 26267148 |
|---|---|
| dhir.jhingran@languageandlearningfoundation.org |
Study information
| Study design | Multi-school cluster randomized controlled trial |
|---|---|
| Primary study design | Interventional |
| Secondary study design | Cluster randomised trial |
| Study setting(s) | School |
| Study type | Other |
| Participant information sheet | Not available in web format, please use contact details to request a participant information sheet |
| Scientific title | A story-based programme to support foundation learning at school entry: a multi-school randomised controlled trial |
| Study objectives | The researchers will conduct a study to evaluate the effectiveness of the Sirsa Intervention Project (SIP), a narratives-based program designed to improve oral language and foundational learning in urban schools across India. The story-based programme will be delivered in Balvatika/Grade 1 classrooms by their usual teachers following a two-to-three-day training programme. Pupils in each participating class within the intervention group will receive the programme for 30 minutes, at the beginning of each school day, for 14 weeks, between August and November 2023. The main hypothesis is: Balvatika and Grade 1 children who experience the story-based programme will show more improvement in their oral language abilities than other children their age in a business-as-usual condition. |
| Ethics approval(s) |
Approved 19/06/2023, Education Departmental Research Ethics Committee (DREC), University of Oxford (15 Norham Gardens, Oxford, OX2 6PY, United Kingdom; +44 (0)1865274024; staff.curec@education.ox.ac.uk), ref: EDUC_C1A_23_233 |
| Health condition(s) or problem(s) studied | Oral language and foundational learning |
| Intervention | This is a multi-school cluster randomized controlled trial. The programme is organised around weekly themes following the schools’ timetable for oral language classes. The first lessons every week will focus on the target story with linked oral language activities, followed by formative assessment and consolidation activities at the end of the week. Each lesson begins with a focussing activity and closes with an action poem. To implement stratified randomization for school selection in the study: schools with fewer than 6 children in Balvatika/Grade 1 classes were excluded to avoid imbalances due to extreme class sizes, reducing the sample from 103 existing schools in the cluster to 82 schools; the remaining schools were grouped based on one stratifier, single-class vs multiple-class, to account for variations in outcomes resulting from different class structures; 20 schools were randomly assigned to the intervention group and 20 to the business-as-usual group, based on the stratification variables and total student counts, aiming to achieve a balance in the number of schools and children in each group. This was done to obtain a manageable number of schools while maintaining adequate statistical power and balance between the groups. Schools in the business-as-usual group will be offered the intervention once the study concludes. |
| Intervention type | Behavioural |
| Primary outcome measure | A latent oral language variable informed by measures of expressive vocabulary, receptive vocabulary, listening comprehension and sentence repetition at baseline and endline. Expressive vocabulary is measured using a word definition task, receptive vocabulary using a picture pointing task, listening comprehension using a just-heard narration, and sentence repetition using a just-heard sentence. In the primary analysis, the pretest latent variable will serve as the covariate, with the posttest latent variable as the outcome. Subsequent analyses will examine the subscales constituting the latent variable. To gauge the intervention's impact, the researchers will employ an effect size measure, ie standardised mean differences, contrasting pre/post differences of students in treatment schools versus those in business-as-usual schools. |
| Secondary outcome measures | A latent variable of foundational learning measured by three tasks (Akshara recognition, number recognition, rapid automatised naming) at baseline and endline |
| Overall study start date | 01/01/2023 |
| Completion date | 31/12/2023 |
Eligibility
| Participant type(s) | Learner/student |
|---|---|
| Age group | Child |
| Lower age limit | 5 Years |
| Upper age limit | 6 Years |
| Sex | Both |
| Target number of participants | Based on current enrolment data, approximately 1000 children. Class size ranges from 7 to 58 children. |
| Key inclusion criteria | Children in Balvatika / Grade 1 aged 5 and 6 years |
| Key exclusion criteria | Schools with fewer than 6 children in Balvatika/Grade 1 classes |
| Date of first enrolment | 24/07/2023 |
| Date of final enrolment | 24/09/2023 |
Locations
Countries of recruitment
- India
Study participating centre
125055
India
Sponsor information
Government
Polaris House
Swindon
SN2 1FL
England
United Kingdom
| Phone | +44 (0)300 321 4357 |
|---|---|
| communications@ukri.org | |
| Website | https://www.ukri.org/ |
"ROR" |
https://ror.org/001aqnf71 |
Funders
Funder type
Government
Government organisation / Local government
- Alternative name(s)
- The Global Challenges Research Fund, GCRF
- Location
- United Kingdom
Government organisation / National government
- Alternative name(s)
- ESRC
- Location
- United Kingdom
Results and Publications
| Intention to publish date | 01/06/2025 |
|---|---|
| Individual participant data (IPD) Intention to share | Yes |
| IPD sharing plan summary | Stored in non-publicly available repository |
| Publication and dissemination plan | Planned publication in a high-impact peer-reviewed journal |
| IPD sharing plan | Research assistants will transfer any paper records from the field site to in-country research offices. Paper records will be digitally scanned inside in-country research offices and uploaded to secure in-country and Oxford digital file storage locations (i.e., the researcher’s password-protected project-designated computer and Nexus365 Sharepoint, respectively). All participants will be pseudonymised. Their participant ID will be used on the transcripts. A linkage list will be stored in Excel that records (a) participants' names, and (b) participants' IDs. This linkage list excel-file will be stored on the researcher’s password-protected computer separately from the research data. Files containing identifying information of participants will not be shared outside of the in-country sites and will be destroyed at the end of the project period. |
Editorial Notes
24/08/2023: Study's existence confirmed by the Education Departmental Research Ethics Committee at the University of Oxford.
