AI, Home Tutoring, and Primary School Students' Academic Perform

Last registered on December 26, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
AI, Home Tutoring, and Primary School Students' Academic Perform
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0017373
Initial registration date
December 09, 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
December 26, 2025, 1:48 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
Kaixing Huang
Affiliation
China Center for Agriculture Policy, Peking University
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Hui Mao
PI Affiliation
PI Name
Han Li
PI Affiliation

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2025-12-10
End date
2026-07-31
Keywords
Education, Other
Additional Keywords
This study proposes a rigorous experimental design to quantify the extent to which generative AI assisted homework support and parental guidance improve primary school students’ test performance and study behavior, and to examine heterogeneity by baseline achievement, parental education, and rural versus urban residence. We implement a randomized controlled trial (RCT) in primary schools in three counties in Shaanxi Province, with participants assigned to a “student AI treatment”, “parent AI treatment”, or “as-usual” control, using school and class-level randomization to identify both direct treatment effects and spillovers.
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This study proposes a rigorous experimental design to quantify the extent to which generative AI assisted homework support and parental guidance improve primary school students’ test performance and study behavior, and to examine heterogeneity by baseline achievement, parental education, and rural versus urban residence. We implement a randomized controlled trial (RCT) in primary schools in three counties in Shaanxi Province, with participants assigned to a “student AI training”, “parent AI training”, or “business-as-usual” condition, using school- and class-level randomization to identify both direct treatment effects and spillovers.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Huang, Kaixing, Han Li and Hui Mao. 2025. "AI, Home Tutoring, and Primary School Students' Academic Perform." AEA RCT Registry. December 26. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.17373-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2025-12-10
Intervention End Date
2026-07-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
standardized test scores in Chinese, math, and English; overall academic achievement index
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Not available.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Class (grade–section) within school. In addition, one school per county is randomized to be a pure control school.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
About 72 classes (grade 3 and 4 classes within 12 schools).
Sample size: planned number of observations
all students in the selected grade 3 and 4 classes
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
18 classes in the student AI treatment, 18 classes in the parent AI treatment, 18 classes in the in-school control groups, and 18 classes in pure control schools.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan