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Field
Trial Start Date
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Before
April 20, 2020
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After
April 09, 2020
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Field
Trial End Date
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Before
July 12, 2020
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After
December 31, 2020
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Field
Last Published
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Before
April 07, 2020 02:08 PM
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After
July 04, 2020 01:37 AM
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Field
Intervention Start Date
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Before
April 30, 2020
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After
April 21, 2020
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Field
Intervention End Date
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Before
June 15, 2020
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After
June 30, 2020
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Field
Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
Based on literature on young volunteers career motivation, beneficial labor market outcomes for volunteers and non-pecuniary incentives we expect positive motivational effects of job references that display additional information on the individual performance. Mentors receiving detailed job references should provide a higher quantity of telephone calls/Video chats and messages and also more minutes of support compared to volunteers incentivized with a simple job reference. Additionally, we think this effect is reinforced for detailed job references with repeated betting devices as underlying PMA (T3) and young volunteers who are primarily motivated by career concerns.
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After
Based on literature on young volunteers career motivation, beneficial labor market outcomes for volunteers and non-pecuniary incentives we expect positive motivational effects of job references that display additional information on the individual performance. Mentors receiving detailed job references should provide a higher quantity of telephone calls/Video chats and messages and also more minutes of support compared to volunteers incentivized with a simple job reference. Additionally, we think this effect is reinforced for detailed job references with repeated betting devices as underlying PMA (T3) and young volunteers who are primarily motivated by career concerns.
We measure these interaction parameters for both the incentive period and the post-incentive period.The latter helps us to capture the continuation of the volunteering activities after the end of the project.
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Field
Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
We draw our participants from a volunteering project that aims to facilitate intergenerational cooperation between young, reduce loneliness and feelings of loneliness of old citizens while at the same time increasing the digital expertise of older citizens.
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After
We draw our participants from a volunteering project that aims to facilitate intergenerational cooperation between young and reduce feelings of loneliness of old citizens while at the same time increasing the digital expertise of older citizens.
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Field
Planned Number of Observations
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Before
at least 160 tandems, 320 maximum
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After
32 tandems are planned
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Field
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
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Before
at least 40, 80 maximum
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After
8 volunteers in each treatment condition
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Field
Additional Keyword(s)
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Before
job references, volunteering, nonmonetary incentives, intergenerational cooperation, smartphone, older adults, COVID-19
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After
job references, volunteering, nonmonetary incentives, intergenerational cooperation, smartphone use, older adults
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Field
Keyword(s)
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Before
Education, Labor, Other
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After
Education, Governance, Labor, Other
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Field
Intervention (Hidden)
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Before
The approach aims to compare the performance of volunteers that can either receive a job reference with or without additional information on individual performance. After enrolment the control group (=T0) is motivated by a simple job reference, which contains a list and description of the individual volunteering activities, a description including the objectives of the intergenerational tandem project and a standardized appreciation of the engagement of the volunteers independent of the participant’s individual effort. In contrast, the remaining volunteers can choose between this standard reference of the control group and a detailed reference that additionally displays 0 to 100 engagement points as an indicator for their individual engagement. All volunteers have the non-obligatory goal of assisting an older mentee at least once a week in a personal exchange (e.g. video chat or telephone call) with smartphone tasks (e.g. Internet research, solving an online quiz, sending links/photos/videos). For volunteers that choose the detailed job reference, the number of engagement points on their certificate depends on how often they achieve the weekly goal and which performance assessment mechanism (=PAM) is used to allocate engagement points. We use three different types of PAMs based on the literature on human decision making, incentives and commitment devices.
T1 - Bonus: Start at a medium engagement point level. Win a small amount of points for each successful week.
T2 - Single Bet: Receive the maximum of 100 points, if you achieve the weekly goal in nine of ten weeks. Fall to a low engagement point level if you fail.
T3 - Repeated Betting: Start at a medium engagement point level. Win a small amount of points for each successful week. Loose the same number of points beginning the second week in which you fail to achieve the goal.
Given these combinations, all subjects are randomly allocated to one of four treatment groups: T0 [Control: Simple Reference, no PAM}, T1 [Bonus: detailed reference, PAM based on weekly bonuses}, T2 [Single Bet: detailed reference, PAM based on a single long-term bet} and T3 [Repeated Betting: detailed reference, PAM based on weekly repeated bet]. After completing the application, the pre-intervention survey and the choice of a type of job reference with subsequent control questions, the young volunteers are matched with an elderly person.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic makes it impossible for volunteers to meet in person to spend time together and support their partner with the operation and learning of smartphone applications, for volunteers starting during the corona pandemic, the support has to be provided via phone or video calls.
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After
The approach aims to compare the performance of volunteers that can either receive a job reference with or without additional information on individual performance. After enrolment the control group (=T0) is motivated by a simple job reference, which contains a list and description of the individual volunteering activities, a description including the objectives of the intergenerational tandem project and a standardized appreciation of the engagement of the volunteers independent of the participant’s individual effort. In contrast, the remaining volunteers can choose between this standard reference of the control group and a detailed reference that additionally displays 0 to 100 "engagement points" as an indicator for their individual engagement. All volunteers have the non-obligatory goal of assisting an older mentee at least once a week in a personal exchange (e.g. video chat or telephone call) with smartphone tasks (e.g. Internet research, solving an online quiz, sending links/photos/videos). For volunteers that choose the detailed job reference, the number of engagement points on their certificate depends on how often they achieve the weekly goal and which performance assessment mechanism (=PAM) is used to allocate engagement points. We use three different types of PAMs based on the literature on human decision making, incentives and commitment devices.
T1 - Bonus: Start at a medium engagement point level. Win a small amount of points for each successful week.
T2 - Single Bet: Receive the maximum of 100 points, if you achieve the weekly goal in nine of ten weeks. Fall to a low engagement point level if you fail.
T3 - Repeated Betting: Start at a medium engagement point level. Win a small amount of points for each successful week. Loose the same number of points beginning the second week in which you fail to achieve the goal.
Given these combinations, all subjects are randomly allocated to one of four treatment groups: T0 [Control: Simple Reference, no PAM}, T1 [Bonus: detailed reference, PAM based on weekly bonuses}, T2 [Single Bet: detailed reference, PAM based on a single long-term bet} and T3 [Repeated Betting: detailed reference, PAM based on weekly repeated bet]. After completing the application, the pre-intervention survey and the choice of a type of job reference with subsequent control questions, the young volunteers are matched with an elderly person.
The COVID-19 pandemic makes it impossible for volunteers to meet in person to spend time together and support their partner in using and learning smartphone applications. Thus, volunteers starting during the corona pandemic solely provide support via phone or video calls.
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Field
Secondary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
Several measures should capture the preparation effort, like number of downloaded supporting material and self-reported preperation time.
As a consequence of the higher regularity and intensity of the assistance provided by young volunteers with detailed job references, we expect several positive effects on their elderly mentees compared to elderly people with control group volunteers:
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• Higher decrease in self-reported loneliness
• Higher increase in smartphone use (average minutes per day)
• higher increase in self-reported social integration,
• higher increase in digital competencies,
• higher self-reported decrease in smartphone anxiety
• a higher increase of life-satisfaction
• stronger decrease in perceived loneliness
All these measurements are generated by using a pre post comparison.
Furthermore we investigate treatment differences of elderly mentees in self-reported infection rates with COVID-19.
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After
Several measures should capture the preparation effort, like number of downloaded supporting material and self-reported preperation time.
As a consequence of the higher regularity and intensity of the assistance provided by young volunteers with detailed job references, we expect several positive effects on their elderly mentees compared to elderly people with control group volunteers:
•
• Higher decrease in self-reported loneliness
• Higher increase in smartphone use (average minutes per day)
• higher increase in self-reported social integration,
• higher increase in digital competencies,
• higher self-reported decrease in smartphone anxiety
• a higher increase of life-satisfaction
All these measurements are generated by using a pre post comparison.
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