Attitudes Towards Race and Ethnicity in the UK

Last registered on July 19, 2024

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Attitudes Towards Race and Ethnicity in the UK

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0013893

Initial registration date

June 28, 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

July 01, 2024, 12:46 PM EDT

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

Last updated

July 19, 2024, 12:20 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Imran Rasul

Affiliation

University College London (UCL)

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Lucinda Platt

PI Affiliation

LSE

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Pratyush Tiwari

PI Affiliation

UCL

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2024-06-27

End date

2024-12-31

Keywords

Behavior, Electoral, Other

Additional Keywords

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

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

Abstract

The project will use an online survey organisation to run a survey experiment that aims to understand the attitudes of a representative sample of the UK population, towards causes, consequences, and feasible policy solutions to persistent gaps in economic outcomes between ethnic/racial groups in the UK. The questions asked would focus on perception of economics differences along ethnic/racial lines, perceived understanding of the causes of the differences and attitudes towards possible policy solutions. The participants would be asked to complete an online questionnaire and the data collected would the answers provided by the respondents to the said questionnaire. The proposed method, an online survey, allows the collection of the data and will include an experimental variation that involves up-front priming respondents in different ways.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Platt, Lucinda, Imran Rasul and Pratyush Tiwari. 2024. "Attitudes Towards Race and Ethnicity in the UK." AEA RCT Registry. July 19. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13893-1.1

Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The intervention comprises a priming experiment, in which individuals and randomized to a control group, or to receive a short text priming on racial/ethnic gaps in economic outcomes.

Intervention (Hidden)

The study is a survey experiment in which a representative sample of the UK population is asked their views on inequality, the causes of differences in economic outcomes between minority groups, and potential solutions to these gaps. The experimental component relates to priming respondents (positively or negatively) about the economic circumstances of minority groups in the UK.

Intervention Start Date

2024-06-27

Intervention End Date

2024-07-03

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Individual responses to the survey questions, that fall into three categories: views on inequality, views on the causes of racial/ethnic gaps in economic outcomes, and views on potential solutions to address such gaps.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

The experimental design randomly assigns individuals to either a control group, or one of two alternative primes. An equal number of respondents will be placed into each arm.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Randomization done by computer (but our survey partner, YouGov as they implement the online survey).

Randomization Unit

Individual

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

N/A

Sample size: planned number of observations

4000 individuals.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

The sample will be equally split across treatment arms, so we expect around 1333 individuals in each treatment arm.

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

Given that the primary outcomes collected would be able to be expressed as binary outcomes (0 or 1, for example, support for a particular policy or for a particular belief about the cause of ethnic inequality), the power calculations assume a Bernoulli distribution for the outcome variables and thus a support of [0,1] for the outcome variable means. We used estimates on outcome means from recent surveys conducted in the UK setting to perform power calculations. Using the sources described above, we can approximate that mean for most of our outcome variables would be at least 0.4 or higher. With 80% power and a 5% level of significance, we have determined that we would be able to detect an effect size of 0.06 (a 6 p.p. change as a result of priming) on a mean of 0.4 with a total sample size of 4,000 split equally across treatment arms. That effect size is based on prior research on the topic using survey experiments. For outcomes that have a mean >0.4, we would potentially be able to detect smaller effect sizes as well.

Supporting Documents and Materials

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