Eliciting Attitudes in Statistics Course

Last registered on March 13, 2020

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

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Erasmus University Rotterdam

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Erasmus University Rotterdam
PI Affiliation
Erasmus University Rotterdam

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2020-03-17
End date
2021-06-30
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
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

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)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Internal Review Board Experimental Erasmus School of Economics
IRB Approval Date
2020-03-06
IRB Approval Number
2020-01

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