Learning to see the world’s opportunities: The impact of visualisation on entrepreneurial success

Last registered on June 17, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Learning to see the world’s opportunities: The impact of visualisation on entrepreneurial success
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0004695
Initial registration date
October 28, 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
October 29, 2019, 9:56 AM EDT

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

Last updated
June 17, 2023, 9:19 AM EDT

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University of Oxford

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
London School of Economics
PI Affiliation
London School of Economics
PI Affiliation
World Bank
PI Affiliation
Karolinska Institutet
PI Affiliation
London School of Economics

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2019-06-04
End date
2025-12-01
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We study whether visualisation can be used to access information more efficiently and improve decision making. We test our primary hypotheses that visualisation improves performance in economic choices and can be taught through a randomised control trial with 1967 aspiring entrepreneurs in Colombia. Half our sample receive a ten-session training programme designed to use visualisation in business decision making. To control for the informational content of the programme, the other half of our sample receive either business-as-usual training or assigned to a pure control group. We expect treated individuals to be more likely to use visualisation and with higher quality, resulting in higher performance in choice experiments and better outcomes on average. Furthermore, our sample is characterised as “vulnerable”, with approximately 30% reporting that they have been exposed to armed conflict or migration from the Venezuelan crisis. Consistent with recent findings in neuroscience and psychology that past traumatic experiences make it particularly costly to visualise, we expect individuals previously exposed to trauma to benefit most from the training.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Ashraf, Nava et al. 2023. "Learning to see the world’s opportunities: The impact of visualisation on entrepreneurial success." AEA RCT Registry. June 17. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.4695-1.7
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We have designed a ten-session entrepreneurship training programme that uses visualisation techniques to improve business decision making.
Intervention Start Date
2019-07-15
Intervention End Date
2019-12-06

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Income and wellbeing
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We will test our primary hypotheses that visualisation improves performance in economic choices and can be taught through a randomised control trial in Bogotá, Colombia. 3553 individuals applied to attend our ten-session entrepreneurship training programme. Of those eligible, 1967 individuals with entrepreneurship potential were randomised into one of three groups. Half our sample were invited to participate in a ten-session entrepreneurship training overlaid with visualisation techniques. To control for the informational content of the training, a quarter received the same training without the visualisation exercises (essentially, a placebo group). The remaining quarter were assigned to our pure control group. Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) Colombia collected baseline data on all individuals at their homes or preferred locations prior to the training. Our first and second follow-up surveys will be conducted four and twelve months respectively after the end of the intervention in 2020.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomisation was carried out in an office with a computer using STATA, and we stratified randomisation by gender, age, entrepreneurship status, and income/sales.
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
1967 individuals
Sample size: planned number of observations
1967 individuals
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
956 individuals in treatment; 558 individuals in placebo control; 453 in pure control
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials

Documents

Document Name
IPA letter on data access
Document Type
other
Document Description
IPA Colombia certifies that the research team will not have access to any data or intermediate results from the project until the pre-analysis plan has been made publicly available.
File
IPA letter on data access

MD5: 9913bac36fe885a755ef4e29dc6f6742

SHA1: af73b36c376ec8e796f437fecd8df91754002a1b

Uploaded At: August 21, 2020

IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Innovations for Poverty Action IRB-USA
IRB Approval Date
2019-06-18
IRB Approval Number
14638
IRB Name
London School of Economics Research Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2019-06-24
IRB Approval Number
00769C
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Amendment to PAP (28 October)

MD5: 8fb9c5ee155c5c8afd7f47f50bf76f34

SHA1: 8353f2086cae1f95a5f21e312e9763fbc1a1b422

Uploaded At: October 28, 2020

Pre-analysis plan 20Oct2020

MD5: a68b0273c0332e00c7cbd2deec8a3b34

SHA1: 8063b5cffbdd1ae68be9ec38095a836c6d6c0f27

Uploaded At: October 20, 2020