Beliefs about receiving feedback

Last registered on November 18, 2022
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Beliefs about receiving feedback
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0010413
Initial registration date
November 14, 2022

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
November 18, 2022, 11:29 AM EST

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

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
David Klinowski
Affiliation
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Katie Coffman
PI Affiliation
HBS
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2022-11-29
End date
2022-12-01
Keywords
Behavior, Gender
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.
Abstract
This project examines the beliefs individuals hold about how willing others are to receive feedback on their performance. In particular, in a previous study, we explored whether individuals seek or avoid receiving feedback on their performance on a cognitive test or their performance on job interview questions. In this follow-up study, we attempt to understand whether a new set of individuals holds accurate beliefs about the willingness to seek or avoid feedback of these previous study participants.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Coffman, Katie and David Klinowski. 2022. "Beliefs about receiving feedback." AEA RCT Registry. November 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.10413-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2022-11-29
Intervention End Date
2022-11-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Main outcome measures: incentivized guess of how willing previous participants were to receive feedback on their performance. In particular, we ask subjects to guess how many of 100 randomly-chosen past participants were willing to receive feedback under each of the different prices we offered to past participants, and we pay subjects a bonus of $0.25 if they are within 5 percent of the correct answer for one randomly-chosen guess. We elicit beliefs about 100 randomly chosen men, and their beliefs about 100 randomly-chosen women.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary outcome measures: qualitative questions about beliefs about gender differences in willingness to receive feedback on the study task and on educational and professional settings more generally.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
This is an online study conducted on Prolific. Participants are recruited for a 15-minute study. Their participation involves completing one survey.

First, we collect demographic information from the participants.

Then, we introduce participants to one of the tasks that we used in our previous study (the cognitive test , or the interview study) measuring preferences for feedback. Participants are randomized into a task across participant. In particular, each participant sees either:

(1) The easy version of the cognitive test task
(2) The hard version of the cognitive test task
(3) The blinded version of the interview questions
(4) The non-blinded version of the interview questions

Participants are informed of the task the previous study participants saw, including the full cognitive skills test for those in the test conditions or the full set of interview question prompts in the interview conditions. Participants learn about the questions used to elicit preferences over feedback from the previous study participants.

After receiving this information, we ask participants to guess how willing past participants were to receive feedback on their performance. In particular, we ask them to guess how many of 100 different randomly-chosen past participants were willing to receive performance feedback at different payments. We pay them a bonus of $0.25 if they are within 5 of the correct answer for one randomly-chosen guess. We ask their beliefs about both 100 randomly-chosen men, and 100 randomly-chosen women. Which gender is presented first is randomized across participant.

Finally, we ask participants two qualitative questions about beliefs about gender differences in willingness to receive feedback on the study task and on educational and professional settings more generally.

The study is completed in one sitting.
Experimental Design Details
Restricting the analysis: We will restrict the analysis of the incentivized guesses to participants who are monotonic in their guesses of how many men and women chose to receive feedback under different price to receive feedback (taking price to avoid feedback as negative). Since it is possible that a nontrivial fraction of participants are nonmonotonic in their guesses, we will also consider the following analysis on the entire sample of participants:

1. Guess about the number of men and women who receive feedback at 0 price.
Randomization Method
We randomize treatment assignment at the individual level. Randomization by the computer.
Randomization Unit
Individual participant.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
2,000 participants
Sample size: planned number of observations
2,000 participants
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
500 participants with in each of the four treatment conditions, for a total of 2,000 participants.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Harvard Business School
IRB Approval Date
2022-10-19
IRB Approval Number
IRB22-1428
IRB Name
University of Pittsburgh
IRB Approval Date
2022-11-04
IRB Approval Number
STUDY22100185
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials