Out-of-School Scheduling Friction
RCTClinical Trial
Offering voluntary academic or socio-emotional support outside official school hours creates severe schedule friction and opportunity costs, particularly for working or evening-shift students.
Picture this
When a support initiative requires arriving early or staying late outside official class hours, students with job or family duties cannot participate even if the service is free. It is like opening a free community medical clinic that operates exclusively during standard business hours; the working citizens who need care cannot attend because leaving work forfeits their hourly income.
What the evidence says
Scheduling sessions outside normal class hours resulted in a 70.0% zero-attendance rate for cognitive behavioral therapy workshops and a 97.0% zero-attendance rate for supplementary mathematics tutoring.
- Who was studied
- N = 5,274 upper secondary students across 20 public high schools in Mexico City, where 35.1% of federal high school students hold jobs.
- How
- Randomized field experiment combined with a qualitative process evaluation involving interviews and focus groups across 32 teachers and 216 students.
What to do
Embed voluntary socio-emotional and academic support programs directly within compulsory school timetable hours to eliminate attendance friction for working students.
From the source
"The CBT workshops and math tutoring were planned to be held during out-of-school hours. This was particularly challenging for students who had to arrive earlier at school or stay later... since many of the students... combine school with work."
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