Eliciting Attitudes in Statistics Course

Last registered on March 13, 2020

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Eliciting Attitudes in Statistics Course

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0005450

Initial registration date

March 13, 2020

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

March 13, 2020, 12:43 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country

Netherlands

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Max Coveney

Affiliation

Erasmus University Rotterdam

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Pilar García-Gómez

PI Affiliation

Erasmus University Rotterdam

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Teresa Bago d'Uva

PI Affiliation

Erasmus University Rotterdam

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2020-03-17

End date

2021-06-30

Keywords

Education, Gender, Other

Additional Keywords

Diversity, Discrimination

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Abstract

This experiment is part of a larger policy evaluation aiming to study how forced exposure to minorities during academic group work may change students' attitudes. These attitudes will be elicited during an experiment conducted over three tutorial sessions of a statistics course.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Bago d'Uva, Teresa, Max Coveney and Pilar García-Gómez. 2020. "Eliciting Attitudes in Statistics Course." AEA RCT Registry. March 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.5450-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The intervention involves presenting students with certain exam preparation questions during 3 tutorial sessions of a statistics course in order to elicit preferences.

Intervention Start Date

2020-03-17

Intervention End Date

2020-04-17

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Probability of picking answer from minority student (in terms of gender, ethnicity, or nationality) as (i) the best answer, and (ii) as the worst answer.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

The experiment will take place during 3 tutorial sessions of a statistics course.

Experimental Design Details

As part of a diversity policy, students have been allocated to random working groups (of 2 to 5) students in the previous year. We exploit this random variation to study how the exposure to minority students changes attitudes towards minorities. Some majority students will have (randomly) been exposed to no minority students, while some to many minority students.

To study the effect of the intensity of this exposure, this experiment will elicit such attitudes during 3 tutorial sessions of a statistics course. Namely each student will be randomly assigned a different mini-exam during each of the 3 tutorial sessions. The order in which the names of the fictitious previous students appear will be randomized across each TA - each of which teach 1-3 tutorials consisting of an average of 35 students each. We will exploit this random variation in the position of the previous student's name in order to elicit attitudes that each current student has about minorities.

Randomization Method

Randomization done in office by a computer.

Randomization Unit

The randomization of mini-exams (and hence the order of the fictitious names) will be done at the level of the teaching assistant for the tutorials.

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

1 course.

Sample size: planned number of observations

700 students.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

As the number of tutorials that each TA teaches varies, the sample size per treatment arm also varies. The 9 TAs teach between 1-3 tutorials each per session. Thus, the sample size per treatment arm varies from approximately 35 students to 105 students.

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB