Joint Learning by Doing

Last registered on January 12, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Joint Learning by Doing
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0017621
Initial registration date
January 11, 2026

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
January 12, 2026, 8:26 AM EST

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

Locations

Country
Nepal
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Vatsal Khandelwal
Affiliation
University of Exeter
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Juni Singh
PI Affiliation
World Bank
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2025-05-26
End date
2026-12-28
Keywords
Behavior, Environment & Energy, Health
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This study examines whether joint learning by doing, experiencing a new technology together with a peer in a socially intimate setting, increases adoption and use relative to individual use. We implement a randomized controlled trial in rural Nepal. The intervention combines temporary access to an electric cooking technology with structured peer meetings centered on meal sharing between randomly matched women. The design creates variation in individual use, social interaction without use, and joint use with a peer, allowing us to isolate the added value of social interaction for technology adoption and the extent to which technology use itself stimulates social interaction. In addition, some participants receive real-time feedback on air quality improvements to study how direct evidence affects belief updating.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Khandelwal, Vatsal and Juni Singh. 2026. "Joint Learning by Doing." AEA RCT Registry. January 12. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.17621-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Villages are first randomly assigned to pure control or treatment.

Within treatment villages, households were cross-randomized to receive a temporary 3-month electric cookstove trial, to participate in structured peer meetings, both, or neither. Peer meetings involved repeated meal-sharing sessions with another randomly assigned household in the village. Among cookstove recipients, half also received real-time air quality feedback.
Intervention Start Date
2025-08-04
Intervention End Date
2025-11-21

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Primary outcomes capture adoption and usage of the technology, willingness to pay for new and used cookstoves, beliefs about benefits and air quality, knowledge around usage, respiratory health outcomes, and social network interactions.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary outcomes capture wellbeing, including loneliness and stress, investment in household electrical capacity, and cooking time and fuel use. Additionally, we measure mechanisms-related outcomes including: (1) Peer interactions — meeting attendance, duration, and peer interactions outside meetings; (2) Learning — confidence in cookstove operation and enumerator-verified knowledge; (3) Attention — awareness of various parameters during cookstove usage; (4) Self-reported benefits of peer meetings and altruistic donations to matched peer; (5) Social norms — perceptions of peer usage, discussions with other members of the community, and incidences of sharing cookstoves.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Villages are first randomly assigned to pure control villages or treatment villages. Within treatment villages, households are cross-randomized to receive a temporary 3-month electric cookstove trial (with a private demonstration) and/or to participate in peer meetings, generating four household-level arms: no cookstove and no meetings, cookstove only, meetings only, and both.

Households assigned to meetings are randomly paired within village and asked to meet every two weeks for three months (six meetings), with the first meeting facilitated by enumerators and subsequent meetings incentivized. Among households receiving cookstoves, half are additionally randomized to receive real-time air quality feedback.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done by a computer (using Stata).
Randomization Unit
Villages are randomized into pure control and treatment; households in treated villages are randomized into various arms.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
40
Sample size: planned number of observations
1555
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Eight villages comprising 339 households form the pure control group. The remaining 32 villages comprise 1,216 households assigned to treatment villages. Within these villages, households were cross-randomized: 350 households were assigned to receive a cookstove and 610 households were assigned to participate in peer meetings, implying that some households received both interventions, some received one of the two, and some received neither. Among households receiving cookstoves, 175 were additionally assigned to receive air quality information.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Exeter
IRB Approval Date
2025-05-12
IRB Approval Number
10037713
Analysis Plan

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