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Field
Planned Number of Clusters
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Before
Children in each classroom are randomized into two different treatment conditions, so in principle we are thinking about the planned number of observations, not the planned number of classrooms. Thus, the number of clusters that we need depends on the average number of pupils per classroom. Recruitment is in progress so we do not know yet how many pupils there will be per classroom on average. Once we have a good estimation of that number, the planned number of classes will be the planned number of observations divided by the average number of pupils per class. See also answer to planned number of observations below.
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After
16 classrooms, but children in each classroom are randomized into two different treatment conditions, so the focus is on the number of observations, not the number of classrooms.
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Field
Planned Number of Observations
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Before
Since our intervention is rather minimal, we do not expect a large effect. A small effect in the 0.2-0.25 standard deviation range sounds more reasonable. Hence we would like to have a large sample size to have enough power to detect small effects. This is also why we have only two treatment conditions. Although there are many more potential treatments that could be interesting to look at, we decided to have only two different treatment conditions because we did not want to reduce the sample size per treatment condition.
The recruitment of schools has started and is still in progress. Since the final number of pupils will in the end depend on the number of schools that are willing to participate, it is difficult to pin it down to an exact number. There will be two data collection rounds because of the schedule of our data collectors. Our aim is to have around 600-700 pupils from the two rounds altogether, because we need enough power to detect a small effect size. For example, with a sample size of 665 pupils we would have 80 percent power to detect an effect of 0.2 standard deviations if we can get an R-squared of about 0.15 with our background variables. (Our background variables are age, school year, the classroom identifiers, parental background and sibling composition.)
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After
Approximately 350 pupils. A higher number not feasible (because of low willingness to participate among schools and a health shock that led to the dropout of a principal investigator)
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Field
Intervention (Hidden)
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Before
Gender differences in willingness to compete have been well documented in the experimental literature (see e.g. Muriel Niederle and Lise Vesterlund, 2011, “Gender and competition.” Annual Review of Economics 3(1): 601-630). However, little is known about the origins and malleability of willingness to compete. For example, previous research by Gneezy et al (2009) indicates that nurture plays an important role, but it is unclear which specific social factors operate and how (see Uri Gneezy, Kenneth L. Leonard and John A. List, 2009, "Gender Differences in Competition: Evidence from a Matrilineal and a Patriarchal Society", Econometrica, 77(5):1637-1664).
With this paper we try to fill this gap by examining one potential factor: gender roles in stories for children.
There will be two different treatment conditions in the experiment. In both conditions children read a story which features both a boy and a girl. The genders of the characters are clearly revealed by the names of the characters and by the gender-specific third-person personal pronouns. In Treatment A, children read a story in which the girl is trying hard to surpass other children's performance and get a prize, and she eventually succeeds. The boy is presented as also being interested in the prize but he chooses not to compete for it eventually. In Treatment B, children read the exact same story except that the names of the characters (and of course the corresponding pronouns) are reversed, and hence the gender roles are reversed.
After children read the stories, they have to answer some incentivized questions about it. Children know this in advance, so they have an incentive to read the stories carefully.
Note that the difference between the two treatment conditions is not whether children read a story or not, since both groups read a story. The difference between the treatments is that the gender roles in the story are different. By comparing the outcomes of the the two groups to each other, we will be able to identify whether flipping the gender roles in the story has an effect.
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After
Gender differences in willingness to compete have been well documented in the experimental literature (see e.g. Muriel Niederle and Lise Vesterlund, 2011, “Gender and competition.” Annual Review of Economics 3(1): 601-630). However, little is known about the origins and malleability of willingness to compete. For example, previous research by Gneezy et al (2009) indicates that nurture plays an important role, but it is unclear which specific social factors operate and how (see Uri Gneezy, Kenneth L. Leonard and John A. List, 2009, "Gender Differences in Competition: Evidence from a Matrilineal and a Patriarchal Society", Econometrica, 77(5): 1637-1664).
With this paper we try to fill this gap by examining one potential factor: gender roles in stories for children.
There will be two different treatment conditions in the experiment. In both conditions children read a story which features both a boy and a girl. The genders of the characters are clearly revealed by the names of the characters and by the gender-specific third-person personal pronouns. In Treatment A, children read a story in which the girl is trying hard to surpass other children's performance and get a prize, and she eventually succeeds. The boy is presented as also being interested in the prize but he chooses not to compete for it eventually. In Treatment B, children read the exact same story except that the names of the characters (and of course the corresponding pronouns) are reversed, and hence the gender roles are reversed.
After children read the stories, they have to answer some incentivized questions about it. Children know this in advance, so they have an incentive to read the stories carefully.
Note that the difference between the two treatment conditions is not whether children read a story or not, since both groups read a story. The difference between the treatments is that the gender roles in the story are different. By comparing the outcomes of the the two groups to each other, we will be able to identify whether flipping the gender roles in the story has an effect.
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