Should students front-load effort in their courses?

Last registered on February 01, 2019
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Should students front-load effort in their courses?
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0003790
Initial registration date
January 14, 2019

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
February 01, 2019, 3:14 AM EST

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

Locations

Country
Canada
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Linda Wang
Affiliation
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2019-01-17
End date
2019-08-31
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
The theory behind the class participation and frequent tests is that procrastination is a common problem for undergraduate students (Ariely and Wertenbroch, 2002). Procrastination is not the optimal strategy, as the course material builds over the term, and the lack of comprehension of early material will cause difficulties in understanding later material. Class participation and frequent tests would induce students to put constant effort throughout the courses. In addition, learning is not a linear cumulative process. All students have a slow accumulation period. After the slow learning process (which is also called the process before inflection point), students will accelerate their learning process and students with different abilities will end up with different results. The S-shape learning curve shows that students need to put in a certain amount of effort and pass the inflection points before they discover their true levels of ability. Based on this, it is beneficial to induce all students to put early efforts into their courses: they will not be left behind, and they will find out their academic potential. Few studies test whether we should induce early efforts in students’ courses.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Wang, Linda. 2019. "Should students front-load effort in their courses?." AEA RCT Registry. February 01. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3790-1.0
Former Citation
Wang, Linda. 2019. "Should students front-load effort in their courses?." AEA RCT Registry. February 01. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/3790/history/40916
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
A bonus marks system can be used for courses with multiple midterms. A course has multiple midterms and final, and a bonus mark of their final grade. At the beginning of the semester, students are asked to select from different bonus marks systems and they will have a higher chance of getting the system they want.
Intervention Start Date
2019-01-29
Intervention End Date
2019-04-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Grades in their final exam and course grades.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
In the early weeks of the class, the instructor will announce how the marking scheme will be assigned. The principal investigator will come to the class and explain the experiment procedure.

Students will receive a consent form about the procedure of the experiment, what data will be collected and their rights (including the right to withdraw). They will voluntarily participate in the research.

Students will choose their preferred marking scheme and they will be told about their marking scheme according to the results of the lottery by the third week.

Students will begin their studies and take their exams. The researcher will track students academic performance.
Experimental Design Details
At the end of the course, students will be invited to complete a short online survey that collects information about their study habits, their academic goals, and willingness to take risk.

After course grades are finalized, students’ demographics, admission records and academic records will be collected if students give their consent in the consent form. Here are the data that will be collected if a student grants consent: current year of study at UofT, academic program, gender, age, first language, race, international student status, parents’ education levels, admission records, midterm and final grades in the experimented course, and previous, current and future UofT course grades and GPAs.

Response to comment: There are three marking schemes. There are four groups of students: students get their preferred scheme, students randomly assigned to marking scheme A, students randomly assigned to marking scheme B, and students randomly assigned to marking scheme C. We are comparing the academic performance across the four groups and the control-like group will be students who get their preferred options.
Randomization Method
Randomization will be done in office by a computer using stata
Randomization Unit
individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
240 students
Sample size: planned number of observations
240 students
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
All students have a chance of 50% to get their preferred marking scheme and 25% for the other two marking schemes.
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 Toronto Research Ethics Board
IRB Approval Date
2018-11-27
IRB Approval Number
36548
Analysis Plan

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