Pocket Aces: Commitment and Incentives Against Smartphones for Students

Last registered on December 21, 2021

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Pocket Aces: Commitment and Incentives Against Smartphones for Students
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0003329
Initial registration date
September 17, 2018

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
September 21, 2018, 12:11 AM EDT

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

Last updated
December 21, 2021, 2:21 PM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University of Hawaii at Manoa

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of California Davis
PI Affiliation
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2018-09-01
End date
2022-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Nearly half of US smartphone owners make an effort to limit their use, but only 30% succeed. Usage is particularly high among teens, who spend an average of nine hours per day on their phones. Studies have linked increased smartphone usage to decreased sleep, lower student learning, and negative worker productivity. This study centers on a series of field experiments conducted with Pocket Points, an app that acts as a commitment device and provides tangible incentives to students for curtailing smartphone usage. Students open the app, lock their phone, and start accumulating “points” while the app verifies the student’s location and activity using GPS coordinates. Points can then be used to get discounts at participating businesses. A pilot study found that students randomly encouraged to use Pocket Points at Texas A&M experienced positive academic outcomes, including higher grades and improved in-class focus. In this study, we implement a series of treatment arms across multitude universities to incentivize staying off the phone while in the classroom as well as during sleep hours. Outcomes will be collected through app usage, surveys (e.g. sleep quality), GPS coordinates (e.g. time spent on campus), and transcripts (e.g. course grades).
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Aksoy, Billur, Scott Carrell and Lester Lusher. 2021. "Pocket Aces: Commitment and Incentives Against Smartphones for Students." AEA RCT Registry. December 21. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3329-4.1
Former Citation
Aksoy, Billur, Scott Carrell and Lester Lusher. 2021. "Pocket Aces: Commitment and Incentives Against Smartphones for Students." AEA RCT Registry. December 21. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/3329/history/107176
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
This study consists of two pilots (one at Texas A&M and another one at University of Hawaii at Manoa). For the pilot studies, students will be recruited to participate in an online study. Approximately half will then be encouraged to download and use the Pocket Points app. At the end of the semester, both treatment and control students will complete a survey, and all students upon signing up for the experiment agree to release their academic transcripts. We will also conduct a large scale expansion of our pilot studies with multiple treatment arms to college students across the US. For the large scale expansion, app users will be randomly assigned to one of the treatment arms: Control group, cash group (receives additional monetary incentives to use the app), information group (receives information about the effectiveness of Pocket Points usage on schooling outcomes from the pilot studies), sleep mode group (receives additional monetary incentives to use the app during sleep hours).
Intervention Start Date
2018-09-24
Intervention End Date
2021-10-04

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Self-reported outcomes (e.g. class attendance, focus in the classroom, sleep behavior, restfulness, anxiety, depression), as well as academic outcomes collected via transcripts.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
For the pilot studies, randomization will be carried out at the individual student level, with each student being randomized into treatment or control. Treatment students will be nudged to use the Pocket Points app, while control students will receive no intervention.
For the large scale expansion: app users will be randomly assigned to one of the treatment arms: Control group, cash group (receives additional monetary incentives to use the app), information group (receives information about the effectiveness of Pocket Points usage on schooling outcomes from the pilot studies), sleep mode group (receives additional monetary incentives to use the app during sleep hours).
Experimental Design Details
For the large scale expansion:
During the month of January 2020, our partner smartphone app company, Pocket Points (PP), will reach out to their userbase and solicit their willingness to be part of a research study. Students who agree to be a part of the study will be directed to a sign-up survey where we will collect their informed consent along with some basic demographic information, their contact and payment information. Each participant who completes the survey and gives consent will receive a payment. At the end of January, we will randomize our participants into one of four groups (three treatment arms and a control group). The four groups will each receive a separate email notifying them of their treatment, described in more detail below. Finally, in late May, we will ask participants to complete another survey and to provide their transcripts for the spring term. For completing this last stage, students will be paid another $15. Below we summarize the four groups that students will be randomized into:

1. Control - Receive $5 for completing the sign-up survey, receive $15 in May for completing end-of experiment survey and providing transcript
2. Classroom-Cash - Same as Control, and receive $0.50 per hour of successful use of the app in class, up to $5 per week, for the four weeks of February
3. Classroom-Information - Same as Control, and receive additional information about the effectiveness of Pocket Points usage on schooling outcomes from the TAMU pilot study
4. Sleep Mode - Same as Control, and receive $1 per day for at least eight hours of continual use of the app during sleep hours from 10pm to 10am from Sunday night through Friday morning, up to $5 per week, for the four weeks of February
Randomization Method
Electronically on Excel
Randomization Unit
Individual level
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
2,000 students for TAMU pilot, 1,000 students for Hawaii pilot, and 2,660 for the large scale expansion
Sample size: planned number of observations
3,000 students for the pilots and 2,660 for the expansion
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
For the pilot studies: approximately 50% in each treatment arm
For the expansion: approximately 25% in each treatment arm
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Texas A&M Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2017-07-26
IRB Approval Number
IRB2017-0473D
IRB Name
University of Hawaii Human Studies Program
IRB Approval Date
2019-08-23
IRB Approval Number
2019-00526
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials