Digital Design Thinking Toolkit

Last registered on June 16, 2025

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Digital Design Thinking Toolkit

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0015439

Initial registration date

March 04, 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

March 07, 2025, 8:13 AM EST

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

Last updated

June 16, 2025, 1:30 AM 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

Igor Asanov

Affiliation

University of Kassel

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Gerhard Riener

PI Affiliation

Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2025-01-21

End date

2026-05-31

Keywords

Education

Additional Keywords

JEL code(s)

I1, I2

Secondary IDs

Prior work

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

Abstract

We aim to test the digital version of the design thinking tool kit developed by East Kent Colleges Group (EKC Group) with the support of the Innovation Growth Lab. This toolkit is designed to help students to tackle complex challenges systematically by fostering skills in empathy, ideation, prototyping, and testing.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Asanov, Igor and Gerhard Riener. 2025. "Digital Design Thinking Toolkit." AEA RCT Registry. June 16. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15439-1.1

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

We aim to test the digital design thinking toolkit having the next three treatment arms:

1. Digital design thinking toolkit.
2. Enhanced Digital design thinking toolkit.
3. Control.

Intervention (Hidden)

We are testing the digital design thinking toolkit having the next three treatment arms on 1272 students in the EKC college group:

1. Digital design thinking toolkit.
2. Digital design thinking toolkit enhanced with artificial intelligence.
3. Control.

We are about to experimentally pilot the materials (starting day of the pilot 25/02/2025, end of the pilot 01/05/2025), testing them on 144 students in the EKC college group (who volunteer to participate) allocated randomly to the next three treatment arms:

1. Digital design thinking toolkit. (48 students)
2. Digital design thinking toolkit enhanced with artificial intelligence. (48 students)
3. Control - only baseline/endline survey (48 students)

Based on the results of the pilot, we plan to provide large-scale randomized control trials.

Intervention Start Date

2025-06-17

Intervention End Date

2025-08-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

1. Knowledge of the material covered in the design thinking toolkit.
2. Expectations for education level
3. Future employment and salary expectations

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Wellbeing (WHO-5 Well-Being Index – Topp et al. 2015)
Growth mindset (three-item ‘Implicit Theories of Intelligence Scale for Children’ – Blackwell et al. 2007)
Zero-sum mindset (seven-item scale – Fearon et al. 2021)
Grit (Short Grit Scale – Duckworth et al. 2009)
Empathic concern (Davis 1983, Sommerlad et al. 2021)
Perspective-taking (Davis 1983, Sommerlad et al. 2021)
Adaptation–innovation (Kirton Adaption–Innovation Inventory – Bagozzi and Foxall, 1995)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

We randomly assign students to three treatment arms:
1. Digital design thinking toolkit.
2. Enhanced Digital design thinking toolkit.
3. Control -only baseline/endline survey

Experimental Design Details

We randomly assign students to three treatment arms:
1. Digital design thinking toolkit.
2. Enhanced Digital design thinking toolkit.
3. Control -only baseline/endline survey

We are at the negotiation stage for the randomization level. Currently, we aim for individual-level randomization; however, if deemed infeasible, we will randomize at the class level, adjusting the protocol.

Randomization Method

Randomization is done in the office with help of R software (10.06.2025).

Randomization Unit

Student

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

Randomized (10.06.2025): 1272 Students - individual randomization

Sample size: planned number of observations

Randomized 1272 Students - individual randomization.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

1272 Students - individual randomization.

424 students in treatment 1 - Digital design thinking toolkit,
424 students in treatment 2 -Enhanced Digital Design Thinking Toolkit.,
424 students in control.

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

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB