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Improving the workplace experience of apprentices

Last registered on October 16, 2019

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Improving the workplace experience of apprentices
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0004607
Initial registration date
October 15, 2019

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
October 16, 2019, 10:21 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (Australia)

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (Australia)

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2019-09-11
End date
2020-09-30
Secondary IDs
Abstract
This study aims to assess the impacts of behaviourally informed messages on awareness and understanding of workplace laws among employers and recently commenced apprentices. This is expected to lead to better workplace experience for apprentices, which is in turn expected lead to increased retention rates.
A cluster randomised controlled trial will be used to assess the impacts of paired messages to apprentices and their employers on apprentices’ workplace experience and retention rates.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Greenwell, Harry and Su Mon Kyaw-Myint. 2019. "Improving the workplace experience of apprentices." AEA RCT Registry. October 16. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.4607-2.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
A series of paired messages sent by email and SMS to apprentices and their employers in the trial.
Intervention Start Date
2019-09-18
Intervention End Date
2020-04-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Apprentice retention
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
This is a binary measure (whether or not the apprentice is still in their training contract with their employer at the end of the follow-up period).

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Two arm cluster randomised controlled trial, clustered at the business level.
Experimental Design Details
A two-arm cluster randomised controlled trial, to be evaluated using quantitative (administrative and survey data) and qualitative data (interviews).
Apprentices and their employers will be enrolled in batches, based on monthly commencement data of apprentices, to reach the desired sample size.
A survey of apprentices and employers, as well as qualitative data (interviews) will provide information on a series of exploratory outcome measures, including feedback on intervention messages from employers and apprentices.
Randomization Method
Randomisation done on computer
Randomization Unit
Business level
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Approximately 1,000 (depending on number of businesses enrolled)

Sample size: planned number of observations
3,000
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
1,500 observations in the control and 1,500 observations in the treatment group, 500 cluster per arm
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
For the retention outcome measure, we estimate that we would need 2,998 apprentices to detect a standardised effect of 0.1 (one-sided test), 80% power, alpha of 0.05, cluster size of 3 and intra-cluster correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.2. The standardised effect of 0.1 is equivalent to retention rate increasing from 66% to 71%.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Bellberry Limited
IRB Approval Date
2019-08-23
IRB Approval Number
2018-12-1061-A-2
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
March 08, 2020, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
April 29, 2020, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
Unit of randomisation was at the employer level. We randomised a total of 1128 unique employers. However, the trial had to stop in March 2020 due to COVID-19 lockdowns. Therefore we were only able to use 4 out of 6 batches of samples and the final sample included 821 employers.
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
1788 apprentices and 821 employers. We planned 6 rolling monthly enrolment but the trial had to stop in March 2020 due to COVID-19 lockdowns. So only batch 1-4 were used for analyses.
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
6000 employer and apprentice messages were delivered as intervention. There were 896 apprentices in the control group and 892 apprentices in the treatment group (only using batches 1-4). There were 410 emploers in the control group and 411 employers in the treatment group (also only using batches 1-4). Trial had to stop due to COVID-19 lockdowns
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
No
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials

Description
Report from the trial, one page summary and pre-analysis plan are available on our website.
Citation
Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian Government (BETA). 2021. The Workplace experience of hospitality apprentices.