Cognitive Skills, Non Cognitive Skills and Politics

Last registered on August 16, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Cognitive Skills, Non Cognitive Skills and Politics
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0011925
Initial registration date
August 14, 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
August 16, 2023, 10:21 AM EDT

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Heidelberg University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2023-04-01
End date
2023-08-18
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Economic studies often use years of schooling or average enrolment rates as measures of education, even though these readily available measures tend to be very noisy and aggregate a variety of distinct elements. However, recently, the focus has shifted towards the direct measurement of cognitive skills – one of the main skills that we aim to teach students in school and university (Finn et al. 2014; Hanushek and Woessman 2008).

Our research project aims to tackle these aforementioned problems in a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT). First, we plan to induce random variation in improvements to cognitive and non-cognitive skills by teaching a specifically designed course to university students as part of their education. Our focus will be whether the intervention affects students' political knowledge and voting intentions. We plan to offer undergraduate students a mandatory semester-long course to improve their cognitive skills. We will randomly assign students to one of three experimental groups: (i) a treatment group receiving a cognitive (analytical) skills course, (ii) a second treatment group receiving a non-cognitive (soft) skills course, and (iii) a pure control group. We will measure political behavior using surveys.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Chaudhry, Zain and Tobias Korn. 2023. "Cognitive Skills, Non Cognitive Skills and Politics." AEA RCT Registry. August 16. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.11925-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We are teaching one course in cognitive skills (one third each from economics, psychology and philosophy) and one in non-cognitive skills. The students are randomized into groups.
Intervention Start Date
2023-04-01
Intervention End Date
2023-07-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Intention to vote in the future and knowledge of policy issues
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
We will elicit the above in a survey

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We will randomly assign students to one of three experimental groups: (i) a treatment group receiving a cognitive (analytical) skills course, (ii) a second treatment group receiving a non-cognitive (soft) skills course, and (iii) a pure control group.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Eligible students were randomly allocated to either one of our courses or the control group. The randomization was done with the "randtreat" Command in Stata based on a list of eligible students supplied by our partner university.
Randomization Unit
Individual student
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
No clusters
Sample size: planned number of observations
250 students, eventually more (uncertain because it depends on university enrollment)
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Equally divided between the groups with only small differences due to logistical issues
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Based on a minimum sample of 750 students assigned to two treatment arms and one control group equally (250 students per group), the minimum detectable effect size is 0.2511 (for a 20% Type II error probability, i.e. beta = 0.2). The enumeration of 750 students is our planned minimum and depends on various local factors. We therefore hope to enumerate more than the minimum of 750 students, the effect size of 0.2511 hence constitutes our most conservative estimate.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Heidelberg University
IRB Approval Date
2023-03-23
IRB Approval Number
FESS-HD-2023-003
Analysis Plan

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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