Teacher reflection and empathy on student and teacher outcomes

Last registered on September 12, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Teacher reflection and empathy on student and teacher outcomes
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0014258
Initial registration date
August 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
September 12, 2024, 5:02 PM EDT

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Yuqun Gao
Affiliation
Monash University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Rigissa Megalokonomou
PI Affiliation
Monash University
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PI Name
Liang Choon Wang
PI Affiliation
Monash University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-08-19
End date
2025-12-31
Keywords
Education, Labor
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This study investigates the effects of teacher empathy and reflection on students’ engagement and teachers’ career advancement. We achieve this by collaborating with an online university student tutoring firm based in China. The firm is implementing a university tutor training program that includes three interventions: an empathy intervention, a reflective teaching intervention, and a combined empathy and reflection intervention. The intervention aims to improve teaching quality and students' learning experience by enhancing the tutors’ empathy and reflection, and, in turn, attracting more students to their tutoring services. As the firm has randomly assigned tutors into one of four groups (three treated and one control), we utilize this randomization to investigate the causal effect of the teacher empathy and reflection intervention on students’ course attendance, completion, and enrolment, as well as on tutors’ teaching performance evaluations and wages.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Gao, Yuqun, Rigissa Megalokonomou and Liang Choon Wang. 2024. "Teacher reflection and empathy on student and teacher outcomes." AEA RCT Registry. September 12. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14258-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2024-08-28
Intervention End Date
2024-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Student attendance, students’ enrolment, students' tutoring service purchases, and tutor wages.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Approximately 276 tutors will be randomly assigned into four groups: empathy treatment (TE), reflection treatment (TR), combined treatment (TER), and control (C). The intervention will last one semester, approximately 17 weeks. In the beginning of fourth or fifth week of university academic semester, all tutors will receive a document outlining the best and worst teaching cases as a reference. Subsequently, all tutors will receive regular thank-you messages. On the top of the regular thank-you message, tutors in the TE group will be prompted to come up with an empathy strategy for use in the following study weeks. Tutors in the TR group will be asked to reflect on their teaching practices regularly. Those in TER group will be tasked with both activities. Tutors in the control group (C) will not be required to undertake any specific actions.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization will be conducted by statistical software, Stata.
Randomization Unit
Tutors
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Approximately 276 tutors.
Sample size: planned number of observations
Approximately 276 tutors deliver around 4500 tutorials (approximately 16 tutorials per tutor) and teach around 2400 students (approximately 8 students per tutor).
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
69 tutors in empathy treatment group, 69 tutors in reflection group, 69 tutors in combined empathy and reflection group, and 69 tutors in control group.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2024-08-02
IRB Approval Number
41619
Analysis Plan