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Field
Last Published
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Before
January 22, 2026 07:02 AM
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After
June 10, 2026 03:30 AM
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Field
Intervention (Public)
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Before
Second semester students from Norwegian higher education institutions receive an email from SELF with either
1) a gain-framed message highlighting the incentives in the student financing system for credit completion,
2) a loss-framed version of the same information or
3) an invitation to participate in a study success program delivered through a web application.
The control group is not contacted. While treatments 1) and 2) are delivered in April, treatment 3 starts in January.
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After
Second semester students from Norwegian higher education institutions receive an email from SELF with either
1) a gain-framed message highlighting the incentives in the student financing system for credit completion,
2) a loss-framed version of the same information or
3) an invitation to participate in a study success program delivered through a web application.
The control group is not contacted. While treatments 1) and 2) are delivered in April, treatment 3 starts in January.
Revision June 2026:
Due to low take up of the Study Success program, we decided to revise the treatment protocol for treatment 3 and add a fourth treatment arm.
Revised 3) In addition to the invitation to participate in the Study Sucess program sent in January, students also received the loss email (T2) together with a link information video from the Study Sucess program in April.
4) A loss-framed message highlighting the incentives in the student financing system combined with two information video from the Study Success program.
The e-mails of the revised treatment 3 and the new treatment 4 are delivered in April parallell to treatment 1 and 2.
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Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
We consider the following set of outcomes at the end of the second semester:
(1) Three separate measures of academic performance:
- Administrative records on completed credits,
- Missed exams and
- grade average
(2) Two survey measures on academic stress.
- Stress symptoms check list (Strand et al. 2003)
- Academic stress scale (Murberg, T. A., & Bru, E. 2004, Rege et al. 2025)
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After
We consider the following set of outcomes at the end of the second semester:
(1) Three separate measures of academic performance:
- Administrative records on completed credits,
- Missed exams and
- grade average
(2) Two survey measures on academic stress.
- Perceived stress scale (Cohen & Williamson (1988)
- Academic stress scale (Murberg, T. A., & Bru, E. 2004, Rege et al. 2025)
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Primary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Before
Completed credits are based on the institutions reporting to the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund. All Norwegian higher education institutions are obliged to report this and there is a uniform system for the reporting across institutions. The Norwegian State Educational Loan fund convert student loans to grants based on the number of credits completed and thus this is considered a reliable source of information. Students who do not have any credits registered are assumed to not have completed any courses that semester and will be coded as zero.
Information about exam participation and performance is obtained from the exam records of the Norwegian Directorate of Higher Education. Observations are at the exam level, but we aggregate them to individual-semester level.
Missed exams are measured by the number of exams the student was registered for, but for which the student did not meet. Students can sign off the course two to three weeks before the exam, and if they do so they will not be registered as not met.
The performance on the exam is captured by the student’s grade. Norwegian higher education use one of two grading schemes. (1)Letter grades between A and F, where A is the highest grade, E is the lowest passing grade, and F is failed. These grades are transformed to the numbers 5 (A) to 0 (F) before computing the grade average. (2) Pass/fail. This latter grade scale applied to about 19 percent of the exam observations in the pilot study. Grade average is computed as the average grade of exams with a letter grade, and exams with Pass/fail are set to missing. Passed courses are captured by completed credits.
Academic stress:
The measures for academic stress is based on Murberg and Bru (2004) and Rege et al. (2025) and the stress symptoms check list (Strand et al. 2003). Exact question wording in the survey will be uploaded as an attachment to this pre-analysis plan prior to data collection. The items within each survey measure will be aggregated by taking their unweighted averages.
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After
Completed credits are based on the institutions reporting to the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund. All Norwegian higher education institutions are obliged to report this and there is a uniform system for the reporting across institutions. The Norwegian State Educational Loan fund convert student loans to grants based on the number of credits completed and thus this is considered a reliable source of information. Students who do not have any credits registered are assumed to not have completed any courses that semester and will be coded as zero.
Information about exam participation and performance is obtained from the exam records of the Norwegian Directorate of Higher Education. Observations are at the exam level, but we aggregate them to individual-semester level.
Missed exams are measured by the number of exams the student was registered for, but for which the student did not meet. Students can sign off the course two to three weeks before the exam, and if they do so they will not be registered as not met.
The performance on the exam is captured by the student’s grade. Norwegian higher education use one of two grading schemes. (1)Letter grades between A and F, where A is the highest grade, E is the lowest passing grade, and F is failed. These grades are transformed to the numbers 5 (A) to 0 (F) before computing the grade average. (2) Pass/fail. This latter grade scale applied to about 19 percent of the exam observations in the pilot study. Grade average is computed as the average grade of exams with a letter grade, and exams with Pass/fail are set to missing. Passed courses are captured by completed credits.
Academic stress:
The measures for academic stress is based on Murberg and Bru (2004) and Rege et al. (2025) and the perceived stress scale (Cohen & Williamson (1988)).
Exact question wording in the survey will be uploaded as an attachment to this pre-analysis plan prior to data collection. The items within each survey measure will be aggregated by taking their unweighted averages.
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Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
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Before
T1: 4000
T2: 4000
T3: 6000+1000 in test launch
T3b: 6000
Control group (T0): approx. 4000 (remainder of population)
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After
Original:
T1: 4000
T2: 4000
T3: 6000+1000 in test launch
T3b: 6000
Revision:
T3-stress: 4000
T3-learning: 4000
T4: 5000 (test launch group included)
Control group (T0): 5797 (remainder of population)
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Field
Power calculation: Minimum Detectable Effect Size for Main Outcomes
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Before
We conduct power analysis using optimal design software aiming for a power of 80% and a false discovery rate (alpha) of 5%.
For H1, we compare the pooled T1 & T2 (N = 8000) to the control group (N=4000). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.06 standard deviations after correcting for the imbalanced group size.
For H2, we compare the pooled T3 (N = 13 000) to the control group (N=4000). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.05 standard deviations after correcting for the imbalanced group size.
For H3, we compare the T1 (N = 4 000) to the control T2 (N=4000). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.064 standard deviations.
For H4, we compare the T3a (N = 7 000) to the control T3b (N=6000). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.05 standard deviations.
For H5, we compare the pooled T1 & T2 (N = 8000) to the pooled T3 (N=13 000). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.04 standard deviations after correcting for the imbalanced group size.
For the survey outcomes, we, conservatively, expect a response rate of 10%. Adjusting the sample size accordingly, assuming equal participation accross treatments leads to the following MDES using the camparisons outlined above.
For H1, we compare the pooled T1 & T2 (N = 800) to the control group (N=400). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.19 standard deviations after correcting for the imbalanced group size.
For H2, we compare the pooled T3 (N = 1 300) to the control group (N=400). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.16 standard deviations after correcting for the imbalanced group size.
For H3, we compare the T1 (N = 400) to the control T2 (N=400). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.20 standard deviations.
For H4, we compare the T3a (N = 700) to the control T3b (N=600). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.16 standard deviations.
For H5, we compare the pooled T1 & T2 (N = 800) to the pooled T3 (N=1300). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.13 standard deviations after correcting for the imbalanced group size.
We expect to improve power with the addition of control variables
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After
We conduct power analysis using optimal design software aiming for a power of 80% and a false discovery rate (alpha) of 5%.
For H1, we compare the pooled T1 & T2 (N = 8000) to the control group (N=4000). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.06 standard deviations after correcting for the imbalanced group size.
For H2, we compare the pooled T3 (N = 13 000) to the control group (N=4000). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.05 standard deviations after correcting for the imbalanced group size.
For H3, we compare the T1 (N = 4 000) to the control T2 (N=4000). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.064 standard deviations.
For H4, we compare the T3a (N = 7 000) to the control T3b (N=6000). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.05 standard deviations.
For H5, we compare the pooled T1 & T2 (N = 8000) to the pooled T3 (N=13 000). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.04 standard deviations after correcting for the imbalanced group size.
For the survey outcomes, we, conservatively, expect a response rate of 10%. Adjusting the sample size accordingly, assuming equal participation accross treatments leads to the following MDES using the comparisons outlined above.
For H1, we compare the pooled T1 & T2 (N = 800) to the control group (N=400). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.19 standard deviations after correcting for the imbalanced group size.
For H2, we compare the pooled T3 (N = 1 300) to the control group (N=400). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.16 standard deviations after correcting for the imbalanced group size.
For H3, we compare the T1 (N = 400) to the control T2 (N=400). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.20 standard deviations.
For H4, we compare the T3a (N = 700) to the control T3b (N=600). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.16 standard deviations.
For H5, we compare the pooled T1 & T2 (N = 800) to the pooled T3 (N=1300). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.13 standard deviations after correcting for the imbalanced group size.
We expect to improve power with the addition of control variables
Revision June 2026:
Outcomes registry data:
H4 is removed. Sample size numbers and MDE in H2 and H5 are updated to account for the lower sample size in T3. And power calculations for H6 and H7 are added.
For H2, we compare T3 (N = 8 000) to the control group (N = 5797). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.05 standard deviations after correcting for the imbalanced group size.
For H5, we compare the pooled T1 & T2 (N = 8000) to T3 (N = 8 000). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.05 standard deviations after correcting for the imbalanced group size.
For H6, we compare T4 (N = 5 000) to the control (N = 5797). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.06 standard deviations.
For H7, we compare T4 (N = 5 000) to T2 (N = 4 000). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.06 standard deviations.
Survey outcomes:
For H2, we compare T3 (N = 800) to the control group (N = 579). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.15 standard deviations after correcting for the imbalanced group size.
For H5, we compare the pooled T1 & T2 (N = 800) to T3 (N = 900). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.14 standard deviations after correcting for the imbalanced group size.
For H6, we compare T4 (N = 500) to the control (N = 579). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.17 standard deviations.
For H7, we compare T4 (N = 500) to T2 (N = 400). This sample gives us a MDES of 0.19 standard deviations.
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Field
Intervention (Hidden)
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Before
Control (T0): The control group does not receive any contact. The control group is only
invited to the endline survey.
Incentives gain frame (T1): The incentives gain frame receives an email in April 2026
presenting the information about the incentives for credit completion embedded into the student financing system and a reminder that it is not too late to start now.
Incentives loss frame (T2): The incentive loss frame group receives the same information as the gain frame group, except for that it is emphasized that failing to complete credits means that they lose a grant, as opposed to earning a grant if one completes the credits.
StudySuccess program (T3): This treatment group receives an invitation at the beginning of the semester to participate in the study success program. Students who enrol gain access to three modules delivered through a web application over the course of a semester and two short reinforcement videos. Participants receive text message notifications whenever a new module or video becomes available.
The web application combines several components: goal setting, realistic planning, soft-commitment (Himmler et al., 2019, Brade et al., 2024); information about study strategies (Delavande et al., 2022); and brain functioning and stress management (Yeager et al., 2022). Using an end-of-semester survey we will measures students’ attitudes towards these components, as well as their use of planning and study strategies and their perceived stress levels, in order to shed light on the mechanisms through which this composite intervention affects outcomes.
There is substantial uncertainty about the number of students that will sign-up to participate in T3 making it hard to know whether we have the statistical power to have different treatment arms within this treatment. As a result, we will soft-launch T3 in week 3, 2026 with a random sub sample of T3 participants. If sufficiently many students onboards the web application during this soft launch, we will divide T3 into two groups in the full launch in week 5. One group (T3a) will see the app with a soft-commitment, and one group (T3b) will see the same content without the soft commitment.
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After
Control (T0): The control group does not receive any contact. The control group is only
invited to the endline survey.
Incentives gain frame (T1): The incentives gain frame receives an email in April 2026
presenting the information about the incentives for credit completion embedded into the student financing system and a reminder that it is not too late to start now.
Incentives loss frame (T2): The incentive loss frame group receives the same information as the gain frame group, except for that it is emphasized that failing to complete credits means that they lose a grant, as opposed to earning a grant if one completes the credits.
StudySuccess program (T3): This treatment group receives an invitation at the beginning of the semester to participate in the study success program. Students who enrol gain access to three modules delivered through a web application over the course of a semester and two short reinforcement videos. Participants receive text message notifications whenever a new module or video becomes available.
The web application combines several components: goal setting, realistic planning, soft-commitment (Himmler et al., 2019, Brade et al., 2024); information about study strategies (Delavande et al., 2022); and brain functioning and stress management (Yeager et al., 2022). Using an end-of-semester survey we will measures students’ attitudes towards these components, as well as their use of planning and study strategies and their perceived stress levels, in order to shed light on the mechanisms through which this composite intervention affects outcomes.
There is substantial uncertainty about the number of students that will sign-up to participate in T3 making it hard to know whether we have the statistical power to have different treatment arms within this treatment. As a result, we will soft-launch T3 in week 3, 2026 with a random sub sample of T3 participants. If sufficiently many students onboards the web application during this soft launch, we will divide T3 into two groups in the full launch in week 5. One group (T3a) will see the app with a soft-commitment, and one group (T3b) will see the same content without the soft commitment.
Revision:
After the soft-launch of T3 we understood that signup in T3 would be low. We thus decided to revise the T3 protocol, drop treatment T3b and launch an alternative treatment (T4) with one third of the initial T3 sample.
StudySuccess program + incentives loss frame + video (T3): Students are invited to the study success program as described above. In addition, we add a contact point and send the loss message combined with one video link based on the Study Success program. These are the re-inforcement videos initially inteded for program participants. The video either targets students learning strategies (T3-learning) or stress mindset (T3-stress) and is randomly assigned.
Incentives loss frame + study strategies and stress mindset videos (T4): In the new T4 students receive the loss framed incentives message together with two video links with content of the Study Success program. The content are the same as in T3-stress and T3-learning.
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Secondary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
Based on survey measures:
Study behaviour:
(1) Self-reported hours spent on study activities (self-study and lectures) per week
(2) Self-reported planning, commitment and preparedness (Delavande, 2022)
(3) Use of study strategies and division of self-study time across strategies (Delavande, 2022)
Mindset
(4) Stress mindset (Yeager et al, 2022)
(5) Learning mindset (based on Fixed mindset in Yeager et al 2022)
Financial incentives awareness
(6) Financial incentives as motivational factor during the semester and knowledge about the role of credits for grant acquisition) (researcher developed)
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After
Based on survey measures:
Study behaviour:
(1) Self-reported hours spent on study activities (self-study and lectures) per week
(2) Self-reported planning, commitment and preparedness (Delavande, 2022)
(3) Use of study strategies and division of self-study time across strategies (Delavande, 2022)
Mindset
(4) Stress mindset (Yeager et al, 2022)
(5) Growth mindset (Belief that ability grows with effort from Gaumer, Erickson & Nooan, 2016)
Financial incentives awareness
(6) Financial incentives as motivational factor during the semester and knowledge about the role of credits for grant acquisition) (researcher developed)
Revision:
Outcomes for study behaviour 2 and 3 were altered to fit with the new video treatments. The outcomes are now:
(2) Self-reported preparedness (single item question)
(3) Use of study strategies (self-developed)
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Secondary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Before
Measure (1) is relevant for all treatment arms, measures (2)–(5) relate primarily to components of T3, and measure (6) relates to treatments T1 and T2.
The exact survey items will be uploaded as an attachment to this pre-analysis plan prior to data collection.
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After
The exact survey items will be uploaded as an attachment to this pre-analysis plan prior to data collection.
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