| Title: | Encouraging Families to Visit a Literacy Website: A Randomized Study of the Impact of Email and Text Message Communications |
| Description: | The Arkansas Department of Education partnered with the Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest to study the feasibility and effectiveness of using brief email and text message communications to increase the number of parent and guardian visits to the Reading Initiative for Student Excellence (R.I.S.E.) state literacy website. In November 2021, the department sent test messages to families to determine the percentage of households with children in kindergarten–grade 6 in Arkansas public schools that had a working email address or cell phone number and whether the percentage differed by school locale (rural or nonrural) or demographic composition (percentage of economically disadvantaged students, Black students and Hispanic students, or English learner students). Subsequently, the study team randomly assigned 700 Arkansas public elementary schools to one of eight conditions, which varied the mode of communication (email only or email and text message), the presentation of information (no graphic or with a graphic), and the type of sender (generic sender or known sender). In January 2022 households with children in these schools were sent three rounds of communications with information about literacy and a link to the R.I.S.E. website. The study examined the impact of these communications on whether parents and guardians clicked the link to visit the website (click rate) and conducted an exploratory analysis of differences in how long they spent on the website (time on page). |
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| Cover Date: | December 2022 |
| Web Release: | December 7, 2022 |
| Print Release: | December 7, 2022 |
| Publication #: | REL 2023143 General Ordering Information |
| Center/Program: | REL |
| Associated Centers: | NCEE |
| Authors: | Ashley Pierson, Amy Feygin, Jenna Zacamy, Candace Hester, Andrew Jaciw and Anja Kurki |
| Type of Product: | Impact Study |
| Keywords: | |
| Questions: |
For questions about the content of this Impact Study, please contact: Chris Boccanfuso. |