Misperceptions about Caste and Attitudes toward Affirmative Action Among College Students in India

Last registered on March 23, 2025

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Misperceptions about Caste and Attitudes toward Affirmative Action Among College Students in India
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0011706
Initial registration date
July 03, 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
July 10, 2023, 9:13 PM EDT

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

Last updated
March 23, 2025, 6:57 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Harvard University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2023-07-05
End date
2025-07-01
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
India has a large and comprehensive system of caste-based affirmative action in its public colleges and universities. Affirmative action in India’s higher education is meant to address historical inequities that resulted from centuries of caste-based oppression. The system has resulted in a large number of beneficiaries (students from “lower-caste” backgrounds) and non-beneficiaries (students from “upper-caste” backgrounds). Upper-caste students—who are the non-beneficiaries—might have beliefs about and preferences for affirmative action and other redistributive policies which are shaped, in part, by their misperceptions about caste. In this study, I propose an online survey experiment to capture these biases and misperceptions and conduct interventions to address them. I randomly assign 1600 college students in India to one of three arms: a 10-minute online intervention that provides students with facts and research evidence about caste; 10 minute online intervention where students read a letter by an anonymous lower-caste student of the SAME gender and write a letter to a friend explaining what they learned from the letter (saying-is-believing, same gender); 10 minute online intervention where students read a letter by an anonymous lower-caste student of the OPPOSITE gender and write a letter to a friend explaining what they learned from the letter (saying-is-believing, opposite) gender; and a 10-minute online intervention that provides students information unrelated to caste. The results of this study are critical to understanding caste-related biases and misperceptions among college students in India, and, more broadly, for designing interventions that promote diversity and inclusion at higher education institutions around the world.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Bhuradia, Ashutosh. 2025. "Misperceptions about Caste and Attitudes toward Affirmative Action Among College Students in India ." AEA RCT Registry. March 23. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.11706-1.1
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2023-08-04
Intervention End Date
2025-04-15

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
1. Preferences for affirmative action in college
2. Preference for supporting organizations that focus specifically on empowering lower-caste students
3. Attitudes toward caste
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
1. Preferences for affirmative action in college: The outcome will be constructed based on respondents' answers to a question in the endline about their preference for affirmative action quotas in higher education in India (e.g., what percentage of seats should be reserved in colleges for students from lower-caste groups)
2. Preference for supporting organizations that focus specifically on empowering lower-caste students: this will be based on respondents' answers to a question in the endline about the choice of organization to which they would like to donate a part of the money they receive as part of a lottery -- they will have the option of not donating, donating to a caste-based organization, or donating to a gender-based organization.
3. Attitudes index: an index that uses responses from four attitudinal questions (attitudes toward lower-caste students) from the survey—this be z-scored. The questions will be asked on a standard 5-point Likert scale.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
1. Preferences for knowledge
2. Implicit Association Test (IAT) for caste
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
1. Preference for knowledge: based on whether students sign up to receive information and insights about caste especially in higher education
2. I will calculate the mean of difference in IAT scores for those who received the treatment and those who did not

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The intervention will be in the form of an online survey experiment. The online survey experiment will take place as follows. Students will be randomized students into four equal groups (randomization is done automatically via Qualtrics): control/placebo (n = 400), fact treatment arm (n = 400), letter opposite gender arm (n = 400), and letter same gender arm (n = 400). The fact treatment arm (T1) will consist of providing students with information/facts and research about social equality especially related to caste. The second treatment (T2) arm will provide students a letter from an anonymous lower-caste students of the same gender and then prompt students to write a letter to a friend describing what they learn. The third treatment arm (T3) will also be a letter but from a lower-caste student of the opposite gender. T4 will be the control/placebo arm with information unrelated to caste or gender.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Automatically via online survey software (Qualtrics)
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
No clusters. The study is randomized at the individual level
Sample size: planned number of observations
1600 individuals
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
400 individuals per treatment arm
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
0.2 SD (power 80% and alpha 0.05)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Harvard University IRB
IRB Approval Date
2023-05-09
IRB Approval Number
IRB23-0502