Training Public Servants in Government Analytics to Improve Government Administration

Last registered on August 08, 2025

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Training Public Servants in Government Analytics to Improve Government Administration
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0016526
Initial registration date
August 07, 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
August 08, 2025, 8:26 AM 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

Affiliation
World Bank

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University College London

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2025-10-01
End date
2026-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This research project assesses whether training public servants in an online course in Government Analytics (https://www.worldbank.org/governmentanalytics) improves the administration of government organisations. The online course is hosted by the World Bank Institute for Economic Development. The project assesses the effectiveness of the course through a wait-listed field experimental design, in which public servants interested in taking the free-of-charge online course are randomly assigned to an earlier training cohort (treatment group) and later training cohort (control group). Interested public servants and their managers are surveyed online before the training (baseline) and after the treatment group training (endline) to assess whether the online course furthers participants’ understanding of government analytics, positive attitudes towards using analytics in improving government administration (e.g. in terms of feasibility in their organisation), actual government analytics practices of participants, and the perceived impact of these practices on the effectiveness of their organisation, relative to a control group which has not yet taken the training.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Rogger, Daniel and Christian Schuster. 2025. "Training Public Servants in Government Analytics to Improve Government Administration." AEA RCT Registry. August 08. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.16526-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention is participation in the online course in Government Analytics (https://www.worldbank.org/governmentanalytics) hosted by the World Bank Institute for Economic Development. The course presents motivations for, examples of, and tools for, the analysis of government administrative and survey data towards reforms that strengthen the functioning of government administration. It's three elements are learning materials (summarised in the Government Analytics Handbook) and associated practical exercises; a community of co-learners; and, the development of a government analytics project focused on a specific analytical challenge in the official's home public administration.
Intervention Start Date
2025-10-15
Intervention End Date
2026-09-15

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Pre/post survey with public servants and their managers: Public servants seeking to take the training and their managers are sent a link to an online survey (on SurveyCTO). They are asked to complete the online survey before the training (baseline) and after the treatment group training (endline) to assess whether the online course furthers participants’ understanding of government analytics, positive attitudes towards government analytics (e.g. in terms of feasibility in their organisation), actual government analytics practices of participants, and the perceived impact of these practices on the effectiveness of their organisation, relative to a control group which has not yet taken the training, but is also requested to take the survey. In addition to substantive questions about government analytics, the survey includes questions about the participant’s email address, and questions about their demographic and professional background, including – e.g. – gender, age, job title and the organisation they work for.

Online course engagement metrics: The World Bank’s online training platform enables measurement of engagement of public servants with the online Government Analytics training, including time spent on the training platform, number of comments made in the online forum of the training, and number of exercises completed.

Participant submissions of government analytics projects: Participants are asked to share a write-up of the government analytics projects they completed as part of the training, via a Google Form. Project submissions will be downloaded, linked to pre-post survey data and online course engagement, and subsequently pseudo-anonymized, with names and email addresses removed.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The evaluation utilises a wait-listed field experimental design, in which public servants who have expressed interested in taking the free-of-charge online course are randomly assigned to an earlier training cohort (treatment group) and later training cohort (control group).
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization will be done on World Bank computers using reproducible code
Randomization Unit
Individual public official; there are no restrictions on which countries officials can apply from and in previous rounds of the course there were applicants from roughly 60 countries
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
2000 public officials
Sample size: planned number of observations
2000 public officials
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
1000 public officials given training; 1000 public officials control
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University College London
IRB Approval Date
2025-09-10
IRB Approval Number
N/A