Teachers’ role in the Educational Achievements of CHildren (TEACH): A conjoint experiment for mathematics teachers

Last registered on April 16, 2024

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Teachers’ role in the Educational Achievements of CHildren (TEACH): A conjoint experiment for mathematics teachers

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0013298

Initial registration date

April 04, 2024

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 16, 2024, 11:09 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country

Denmark

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Helena Skyt Nielsen

Affiliation

Aarhus University

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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Simon Calmar Andersen

PI Affiliation

Aarhus University

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Lóa Björk Jóelsdóttir

PI Affiliation

VIA UC

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2024-04-08

End date

2024-12-31

Keywords

Education, Gender

Additional Keywords

Arithmetic, mathematics teachers, gender stereotypes, didactic approach.

JEL code(s)

I21, J16.

Secondary IDs

Prior work

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

Abstract

In many settings male students outperform females in mathematics, and furthermore, there appear to be a systematic difference in the way males and females approach mathematics tasks. This may be due to student factors (e.g. differences in preferences, personality, or ability) or teacher factors (e.g. gender stereotypes or didactic approaches). We focus on the role of teachers in fostering this gender gap. We carry out a conjoint experiment testing whether mathematics teachers believe that—all else being equal—male students benefit more from certain didactic approaches compared to females, and if such biases can be explained by teachers’ gender stereotypes or didactic approaches.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Andersen, Simon Calmar, Lóa Björk Jóelsdóttir and Helena Skyt Nielsen. 2024. "Teachers’ role in the Educational Achievements of CHildren (TEACH): A conjoint experiment for mathematics teachers." AEA RCT Registry. April 16. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13298-1.0

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention (Hidden)

Intervention Start Date

2024-04-08

Intervention End Date

2024-05-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

An indicator variable measuring which student the teacher believes would benefit the most from working with alternative strategies for addition and subtraction.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design Details

The study is designed with the purpose of evaluating the effect of student characteristics and their interaction with teacher characteristics on how teachers assess the benefit from working with alternative strategies for addition and subtraction.
Respondents are faced with a conjoint experiment, where they are presented with two hypothetical students in a math class. All respondents see the following attributes of the students: gender, number understanding, socio-economic status, relative age, and bilingualism. Furthermore, they see grade level, which is equal to the grade level at which the respondent has reported to teach mathematics.
All respondents are asked to consider 10 scenarios in 10 task rounds. In each round the respondent is asked to make a forced choice between two student profiles. They are asked to choose which student would benefit the most from working with alternative strategies for addition and subtraction.
We randomize the level of the attributes within respondents and profiles under the following restrictions:
i) The grade level is fixed to be the Xth grade reported by the respondent at the beginning of the questionnaire. This is meant to make the profile as realistic as possible from the respondent’s point of view.
ii) For each pair of students evaluated by the respondent, the gender of the student is assigned to differ, such that one student is male and the other is female. This is done to avoid ties, which would not provide information of relevance for testing the main hypotheses.
The order of the attributes is randomized between respondents. However, the randomly assigned order of the attributes, which is shown for the first task stays unchanged for all ten tasks evaluated by the respondent.

Randomization Method

Randomization done by a computer.

Randomization Unit

Randomization of the level of attributes within respondents and profiles.

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

Respondents: 343 teachers

Sample size: planned number of observations

Respondents: 343 teachers

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

Effective sample size: 6860 (= 343 respondents * 2 profiles * 10 tasks)

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

Unit of main outcome: 0/1. Mean=SD=0.5. Minimum detectable effect sizes: Average marginal component effects (AMCE) = 0.03 using a one-sided test (3 percentage points, 6% of a SD). Average marginal component interaction effects (AMCIE) = 0.06 using a one-sided test (6 percentage points, 12% of a SD).

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB