Together but not scrambled? Ethnic discrimination and a low-cost intervention

Last registered on July 19, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Together but not scrambled? Ethnic discrimination and a low-cost intervention
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0011765
Initial registration date
July 16, 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 19, 2023, 2:35 PM EDT

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

Locations

Region
Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
UiS

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Zurich

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2023-07-19
End date
2023-08-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
The aim is to conduct a large-scale field experiment in which we test the efficiency of an intervention. A regional sports research center sends an email to a random selection of around 600 amateur soccer coaches. In this email the coaches find a link with a two minute video in which famous Swiss football player point towards the important role that football can play in promoting inclusivity and reducing racism in society. Two weeks later, we send fictitious applications asking to join an amateur club. We use either typical Swiss- or foreign-sounding names. We compare the response rate for Swiss- and foreign-sounding names as well for coaches who received the video and those that did not.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Gomez-Gonzalez, Carlos and Cornel Nesseler. 2023. "Together but not scrambled? Ethnic discrimination and a low-cost intervention." AEA RCT Registry. July 19. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.11765-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention consists of an email which the Center for Research in Sports Administration (CSRA) sends to a random half of the sample. In this email the CSRA shares a link with a video with the coaches. In this video two famous professional football players inform the coaches about the importance of integration.
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2023-07-19
Intervention End Date
2023-08-03

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
We are interested in the response rate towards applications from Swiss- and foreign sounding names for respondents in the control and in the treatment group.

Our outcome variable is the response of coaches of the amateur football clubs to the request to join a training. In the control group (the group of coaches who have not been sent an email by the federation), we expect a positive gap in positive response rates to emails signed with a native and foreign-sounding name. In the treatment group, we expect that this gap is smaller. A positive response is defined as either an invitation to come to a training or a conditional acceptance (e.g. yes, you're welcome, but only if you are a player of a particular type, e.g. defender).
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Additionally, we are interested if our primary outcomes are influenced by, e.g., the location of the team, the league a team plays in, or the gender of the players (i.e., men or women team).
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
revious field experiments show that amateur soccer clubs discriminate against people with foreign-sounding names. We want to replicate parts of these experiments. In addition, our key aim is to detect if it is possible to decrease discrimination.

We follow the method of previous research (e.g., Nesseler et al., (2019) or Gomez-Gonzalez et al., (2021)). Thus, we create fictitious amateur soccer players that are asking amateur soccer teams to participate in a trial session. We then evaluate the response of the soccer clubs.

Following the recommendations of the ethical committee, we send another email to coaches who respond to the request to join a training. The email aims to minimize the impact on coaches and reads as follows: "Thank you very much for your answer. Unfortunately, I am no longer interested."

References
Gomez-Gonzalez, C., Nesseler, C., & Dietl, H. M. (2021). Mapping discrimination in Europe through a field experiment in amateur sport. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00773-2

Nesseler, C., Gomez-Gonzalez, C., & Dietl, H. (2019). What’s in a name? Measuring access to social activities with a field experiment. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 5(1), 1-7. doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0372-0
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
We use a random seed with the Stata "set seed" command.
Randomization Unit
We randomize at the regional level. In this way we ensure that individual names are not overrepresented in specific regions.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Around 1150 amateur football coaches
Sample size: planned number of observations
Around 1150 amateur football coaches
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
This is the same as we do not have clusters. Around 1150 amateur football coaches
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
In previous research a similar intervention had a minor effect (see Dur et al., 2022). Thus, if we expect that the intervention has a minor effect (similar to previous studies) of 3 percentage points we need at least 500 observations (with a power of around 0.9) to detect this difference. Accordingly, we decided to have four groups: Swiss sounding names in the control and treatment group and foreign sounding names in the control and treatment group.
Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Human Subjects Committee of the Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology at the University of Zurich
IRB Approval Date
2022-09-15
IRB Approval Number
2022-073

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