Nurturing STEM Talent in School

Last registered on February 05, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Nurturing STEM Talent in School
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015320
Initial registration date
February 05, 2025

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
February 05, 2025, 9:58 AM EST

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
Michela Carlana
Affiliation
Harvard Kennedy School
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Alexia Delfino
PI Affiliation
Bocconi University
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PI Name
Nava Ashraf
PI Affiliation
LSE
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PI Name
Francesca Rinaldi
PI Affiliation
Bocconi University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2025-08-01
End date
2027-07-31
Keywords
Education, Gender
Additional Keywords
Stereotypes, STEM, Soft skills, Aspirations, Career choice
JEL code(s)
I21, I24, I26, J16, J22, J24
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
The persistent under-representation of women in STEM fields contributes to the growing gap between the demand for and supply of STEM skills, with gender disparities emerging as early as adolescence when girls take fewer advanced science courses. While numerous initiatives aim to promote female participation in STEM, their effectiveness remains under-explored. In this project, we address the issue of female under-representation in STEM by focusing on the participation of girls in advanced coding clubs in Italian middle schools. We aim to causally address two main research questions: (1) Does the peer composition of coding clubs (single-sex vs. mixed-gender) affect the performance, choice of science track in high school? Does it affect the perception of stereotypes in the school and society? (2) Does combining negotiation skills with coding reduce the gender gaps in the choice of science track in high school?

We partner with the NGO “Officina Futuro Foundation" that has been implementing coding clubs in Italian schools since 2014. The project is designed to involve two levels of randomization to answer the research questions. First, in the schools implementing at the same time both the single-sex and mixed-gender clubs, we will randomly assign girls at individual level to one of the two activities. Second, we will randomly assign at the club level an additional training on empowering communication and negotiation skills. Using a wide set of administrative and survey data, we will investigate the impact on girls' performance, high-school track choice, perception of stereotypes about gender and science, and self-concept.
External Link(s)
Girls Code It Better (partner)

Registration Citation

Citation
Ashraf, Nava et al. 2025. "Nurturing STEM Talent in School." AEA RCT Registry. February 05. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15320-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
This study includes two interventions with different aims.
The first component of the intervention focuses on the peer composition of these clubs and involves all students who applied to participate in a coding club. Female students are randomized into mixed-gender (STEM Your Brain) or single-sex (Girls Code It Better) clubs. Male students are randomized into mixed-gender coding club (STEM Your Brain), referred to as treatment group, or out (no coding club), referred to as control group. All students are attending the coding course in the school year 2025-26.
The second intervention is at the club level and concerns all students participating in that club. Half of the club will be assigned to complete a training on empowering communication and negotiation skills. Delivered through workshops and follow-up sessions, this component seeks to mitigate potential negative effects of mixed-gender interactions by fostering confidence, active listening, and collaboration skills among participants.
Intervention Start Date
2025-09-15
Intervention End Date
2026-06-15

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Chosen high school track; Questions on stereotypes on gender, science, and soft-skills; Negotiation and communication skills
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Coding club applicants' high school track choice is collected from administrative data. Specifically, we are interested in enrollment in high school tracks focused on STEM subjects. The other outcomes of interest will include data collected from a student's questionnaire that will be implemented in April-June 2026. Data will encompass students’ perceptions and stereotypes, and their ability to negotiate and communicate. We will invite students to complete a set of questions to elicit their stereotypical beliefs around gender, science and soft skills as well as a set of incentivized experimental games to elicit their negotiation skills and risk attitudes.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Network data; educational aspirations; psychological well-being; risk attitudes; students school performance
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
The secondary outcomes of interest will include data collected from a student's questionnaire that will be implemented in April-June 2026. Data will encompass students’ risk attitudes, psychological well-being, educational aspirations, and social network. We will invite students to complete a set of questions on their psychological well-being, including self-confidence in Math, Math anxiety, and self-concept; a set of questions and incentivized games on risk aversion; a set of questions on student's social networks and educational aspirations. Further, students school performance is obtained from administrative data on teacher-assigned grades, school absences and dropout, and results in standardized tests.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
There are two main RCT experiments. The first one involves the randomization of student to mixed-gender or single-sex clubs in schools that offer both types of clubs. The second concern the impact of an additional workshop to develop soft skills and effective communication among the set of all participating clubs (regardless of the club type).
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
The randomization will be done in office by a computer. For the first intervention, a number will be randomly assigned to each applicant and those with the associated smallest number will be selected to attend the mixed-gender club. For the second intervention, a number will be randomly assigned to each club and those with the associated smallest number will be selected.
Randomization Unit
We will randomize the first intervention at the individual level within each school and gender: that is, female students within the same school will be randomized at the individual level, and male students within the same school will also be randomized at the individual level. The second intervention will be randomized at the club level.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
For the first intervention, the treatment is clustered by schools, and we expect a total of 40 schools.
For the second intervention, the clusters are the coding clubs, and we expect a total of around 160 clubs in 80 schools.
Sample size: planned number of observations
For the first intervention, we expect a total of up to 2,000 female students and 2,000 male students. For the second intervention, we expect a total of around 3,200 students. For spillover effects, the population for this study includes up to 15,000 students enrolled in grade 6 to 8 in all 80 schools.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
For the first intervention, female applicants in schools implementing both clubs (40 schools) will be randomly allocated to either single-sex or mixed-gender groups. All female students will be included in the clubs, eventually increasing the number of clubs created in the school if there in case of excessive demand. The mixed-gender clubs will have at least 30% of female students. Among the male applicants, we will randomly select students to fill 70% of the slots in mixed-gender clubs.
For the second intervention, we include 50% of coding clubs as treated and 50% as control.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
We will leverage individual level randomization to the type of clubs on around 1,300 girls. First, we will analyze the impact on the take-up: we expect to detect an improvement of 5 percentage points out of a baseline mean of 90% for the girls assigned to single-sex schools. Then, we will investigate the impact on the track choice. With a significance level of 5%, we expect a minimum detectable effect of 0.17 standard deviations, or a 7 percentage points compared to a mean in the control group of 20 percentage points. We expect to achieve higher power once we control for characteristics collected during the survey, especially given that we will have a rich set of baseline information available. Finally, to investigate the impact of negotiation and empowering communication, we will randomize at club-level. Considering 160 clubs, we expect a minimum detectable effect on track choice of 0.13 standard deviation. This may compensate in mixed gender clubs the potential negative impact of the across gender interaction.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Harvard University
IRB Approval Date
2024-10-01
IRB Approval Number
IRB24-1038
IRB Name
Bocconi University
IRB Approval Date
2024-09-30
IRB Approval Number
RA000802
Analysis Plan