The Roots of Gendered Behaviour : Insights from an Online Experiment with Teachers

Last registered on October 17, 2023
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The Roots of Gendered Behaviour : Insights from an Online Experiment with Teachers
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012302
Initial registration date
October 15, 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
October 17, 2023, 1:44 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country
France
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Marion Monnet
Affiliation
Université de Bourgogne
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2023-09-01
End date
2024-04-30
Keywords
Education, Gender
Additional Keywords
implicit gender bias, teaching practices, secondary education
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Evidence shows that teachers interact differently with boys and girls, grade them differently and provide different feedback and career advice. These gendered teaching practices have signi cant effects on boys' and girls' school achievement and educational choices, especially in scienti c subjects where strong gender stereotypes prevail. However, little is known about the behavioral roots of such gendered practices. We rst develop a theoretical model to rationalize teachers' potential gendered behaviour. We then empirically test those mechanisms using an
online experiment with secondary education teachers from several subjects. Teachers are asked to evaluate ctitious school transcripts for which we randomly change the information displayed, namely the student's gender (to measure the extent of their gendered practices). Then, they are invited to play a set of gender-blind and gender-revealed dictator games (to measure gender identity) and to take an implicit association test (to measure gender implicit biases). We outline the study design, the variables of interest, the empirical approach and the hypotheses to be tested.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Monnet, Marion. 2023. "The Roots of Gendered Behaviour : Insights from an Online Experiment with Teachers." AEA RCT Registry. October 17. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12302-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We designed an online experiment to collect three measures of interest for each teacher: gender identity, gender implicit bias and gendered teaching practices. The experiment is taken online and lasts about 20 minutes. After an introduction including a few standard questions on
socio-demographic characteristics, participants always start by evaluating fi ctitious school transcripts for chich students' gender varies. The following two blocks of the experiment are taken in a random order : one is a set of dictator games to measure gender identity ; the other one is an implicit association test.
Intervention Start Date
2023-10-16
Intervention End Date
2024-01-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
* Overall transcript assessment, discrete number between 0 and 30 ;
* Written feedback, discrete number between 1 (strong fixed mindset) and 4 (strong growth mindset);
* Distinction, discrete number between 1 ("worrisome") and 7 ("excellent")
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
* Gender identity
* Implicit association bias
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
* Gender identity. it is measured as the difference between what the teacher gives when she plays with a same-sex player and when she plays with an opposite-sex player, divided by the amount given to a same-sex player. This measure tells us how much more altruistic the teacher is relative to a baseline level of altruism with her own gender.

Implicit association bias : it is measured using the standard d-score, which is equal to the difference between the average response time taken in each of the rounds (stereotypical vs. counter-stereotypical associations) divided by the overall standard deviation. Respondents with neutral associations (i.e. without implicit gender bias) are expected to have a score around 0.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Teachers are invited to participate to an online experiment regarding their teaching practices on a voluntary basis. They all take the same online survey except that some block are randomized :
* 10 out of the 16 school transcripts they must assess are randomly drawn. Some transcripts will be treated (i.e. it will be a female transcript) while some will be controls (i.e. it will be a male transcript)
* the players against whom they play the dictator game are similar for every player but appear in random order
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization based on a random number generated by a computer
Randomization Unit
Individual randomization
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
1000
Sample size: planned number of observations
10000
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
5000 controls ; 5000 treated
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich)
IRB Approval Date
2023-03-31
IRB Approval Number
EK-2023-N-10-A
Analysis Plan

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