Improving match quality to college majors and impacts on student outcomes in high school

Last registered on February 13, 2023
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Improving match quality to college majors and impacts on student outcomes in high school
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0010870
Initial registration date
February 07, 2023

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
February 13, 2023, 10:37 AM EST

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Fei Yuan
Affiliation
Harvard University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Yuan Pei
PI Affiliation
Harvard University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2022-12-19
End date
2025-07-31
Keywords
Behavior, Education
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Choosing the best-fit major is a substantial challenge for many students, especially those in education systems with less flexibility in major-switching. This experiment studies how high school students evaluate various characteristics of college majors, and the impact on their academic preparation for college and other socioemotional outcomes. I conduct experiments on grade 10 students (i.e., first-year high school students) in China. First, I examine high school students' expectations for intended college majors. Using an online survey, I ask whether they have intended majors, the primary reasons they consider those majors, their personal tastes for those majors, and their (un)certainty and knowledge about the wage and non-wage aspects of the majors. Second, I use an experiment to provide students with tutorials on their top three majors. Each tutorial covers course requirements, relevant high school subjects, career options, and mini-lectures about key concepts and applications of a college major. I study how students update their expectations for their intended college majors and change their behavior in academic preparation, goal-setting, and the choice of major. The results of the experiment will help us better understand how high school students make college major choices.



External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Pei, Yuan and Fei Yuan. 2023. "Improving match quality to college majors and impacts on student outcomes in high school ." AEA RCT Registry. February 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.10870-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention consists of three online tutorials on college majors. Each tutorial is a 20-60 minute video, covering course requirements, relevant high school subjects, career options, and mini-lectures about key concepts and applications of a college major.
There are two treatment arms of this intervention. (1) In the Information-only treatment arm, students receive the first session of the tutorials, including course requirements, relevant high school subjects, and career options of a major. (2) In the Full treatment arm, students receive all the components of the tutorials.
Intervention Start Date
2023-01-16
Intervention End Date
2023-03-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Student's choice of intended college majors, choice of elective subjects for the college entrance exam, academic motivation, test scores, self-efficacy for college-major decision-making and goal-setting
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Academic motivation is measured by an adapted version of the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS-HS28) High School Version, in Robert J. Vallerand, Luc G. Pelletier, Marc R. Blais, Nathalie M. Brière, Caroline B. Senécal, Évelyne F. Vallières, 1992-1993. Educational and Psychological Measurement, vols. 52 and 53.
Measures for self-efficacy for college-major decision-making and goal-setting were adapted from Self-Efficacy Instrument in Nadya A. Fouad, Philip L. Smith & Larry Enochs (1997) Reliability and Validity Evidence for the Middle School Self-Efficacy Scale, Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 30:1, 17-31, DOI: 10.1080/07481756.1997.12068914.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
mapping between college majors and electives on the college entrance exam, mapping between college majors and careers, knowledge about course requirements and contents of college majors, mapping between college majors and high school subjects, educational aspiration, expectation for wages after college
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
There are four stages of this experiment. First, using an online survey, I ask whether they have intended majors, the primary reasons they consider those majors, their personal tastes for those majors, and their (un)certainty and knowledge about the wage and non-wage aspects of the majors. Second, I use an experiment to provide students with tutorials on their top three majors. Each tutorial covers course requirements, relevant high school subjects, career options, and mini-lectures about key concepts and applications of a college major. Students in the treatment are randomly assigned to the (1) Information-only treatment group or (2) Full treatment group. Students in the Information-only group receive the first session of the tutorials, including course requirements, relevant high school subjects, and career options of a major, while students in the Full treatment arm receive all the components of the tutorials. Third, I survey the students one month after the intervention to study how students update their expectations for their intended college majors and change their behavior in academic preparation, goal-setting, and the choice of major. Fourth, I follow up with the students in six months to study the medium-term effects of the intervention on the primary outcomes.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
The experiment used a two-stage randomization design. The first-stage randomization was at the classroom level. Classrooms were randomly assigned to one of the three groups: high-saturation treatment, low-saturation treatment, and control. Within the high- and low-saturation groups, half of the classrooms will receive the information-only treatment, and half of the classrooms will receive the full tutorial treatment. In the high-saturation treatment group, 100% of students will get the treatment. In the low-saturation treatment group, 50% of students will get the treatment and the randomization was done at the individual level.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
63 classrooms
Sample size: planned number of observations
2,500 high school students from 62 classrooms
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
18 classrooms control, 23 classrooms information-only treatment, 21 classrooms full treatment
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 University
IRB Approval Date
2022-11-02
IRB Approval Number
IRB22-0919
Analysis Plan