Demand for Online Teaching - Evidence from a large-scale survey

Last registered on April 26, 2023

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Demand for Online Teaching - Evidence from a large-scale survey

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0011297

Initial registration date

April 19, 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

April 26, 2023, 4:29 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country

Norway

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Vegard Sjurseike Wiborg

Affiliation

Nordic institute for studies of innovation, research and education

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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Andreas Østbø Fidjeland

PI Affiliation

Nordic institute for studies of innovation, research and education

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

Completed

Start date

2023-03-23

End date

2023-04-26

Keywords

Behavior, Education

Additional Keywords

online, teaching

JEL code(s)

I2, I23

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

Research on students’ attitudes towards online teaching is a vital factor in predicting market changes, due to the increasing prevalence of online teaching in higher education. Still, there is little research on this topic in economics. Moreover, studies across the social sciences seldomly apply experimental methods to elicit such attitudes, instead relying and small samples prone to selection bias. This pre-analysis plan describes a survey experiment designed to overcome the methodological shortcomings of the existing literature, and an important knowledge gap by shedding light on students’ perceptions of online teaching on their own motivation and learning outcomes. The plan includes motivation, and information about the conduction of the survey, about the implementation of the experiment, hypotheses, power tests and exploratory analyses. The survey was launched in mid-March 2023 and is administered by the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education (NOKUT). The data collection period is scheduled to end in late April. We expect to receive the dataset in the end of April/beginning of May.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Fidjeland, Andreas Østbø and Vegard Sjurseike Wiborg. 2023. "Demand for Online Teaching - Evidence from a large-scale survey." AEA RCT Registry. April 26. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.11297-1.0

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

In a survey experiment, students are presented with a scenario describing hypothetical changes of four aspects of their study program – teaching, feedback, exchange possibilities and semester fee. We implement three between-subjects treatments with regards to the share of online teaching in the study program: 25%, 50% and 75% online teaching.

Intervention Start Date

2023-03-23

Intervention End Date

2023-04-26

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Our aim is to gauge how the share of online teaching in the scenarios affect students perception of three outcomes:

- Academic outcomes
- Time spent on side work
- Probability of changing study program

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Academic outcomes is an additive index of answers to questions about motivation, learning outcomes, probability of finishing their studies on time

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

We present students with a scenario describing hypothetical changes of four aspects of their study program – teaching, feedback, exchange possibilities and semester fee – and implement three between-subjects treatments with regards to the share of online teaching in the study program: 25%, 50% and 75% online teaching. For comparison we also randomly vary the level of semester fees which is paid by students prior to each semester. This allows us to compare the effects of our online teaching treatments with the effects of increased semester fees, thereby providing a scale with a natural interpretation to which we can anchor our estimates of the demand for online teaching. Based on the information provided, we ask students to answer three questions regarding their motivation, learning outcomes, and probability of finishing their degree on time (30 ECTS credits per semester on average). We also ask them to evaluate two claims regarding 1) the attractiveness of the changes and 2) whether the changes would affect the extent of part-time work.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Randomization done in office by computer. Our experimental set up has nine treatment groups (3 online treatment x 3 semester fee treatments). Respondents were randomly assigned to one of the treatment groups prior to the distribution of the survey.

Randomization Unit

Between subjects at the individual level.

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

No treatment clusters

Sample size: planned number of observations

10603 students from Norwegian higher education institutions were invited to participate in the survey. Based on a conservative estimate of the response rate, 20%, we expect to have around 2000 respondents in our endline sample.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

About 220 respondents in each of the nine treatment arms.

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

At the conventional levels of 80% and 95% confidence level, we estimate that our sample size allows for a minimum detectable effect size of 0.135 standard deviations with regards to our hypotheses on difference between the online treatments.

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB