Impact of Preferential Rank Incentives on University Test Scores

Last registered on October 31, 2020
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Impact of Preferential Rank Incentives on University Test Scores
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0005841
Initial registration date
May 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
May 13, 2020, 3:41 PM EDT

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

Last updated
October 31, 2020, 6:44 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country
India
Region
Assam and Meghalaya

Primary Investigator

Name
Sutanuka Roy
Affiliation
University of Chicago; Australian National University
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2016-07-13
End date
2017-03-31
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
Field experiments, Tournament Incentives, Economics of Education, Educational Inequality, Post-Secondary Education, Developing Countries
JEL code(s)
C93, H52, I21, M52, O15
Secondary IDs
Abstract
This is a large-scale cluster randomized experiment involving over 14,000 undergraduate students at universities in the State of Assam and Meghalaya, designed to test the individual impacts of providing rank based financial incentives to low income or socially disadvantaged students in future high stakes anonymized university exams.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Roy, Sutanuka. 2020. "Impact of Preferential Rank Incentives on University Test Scores." AEA RCT Registry. October 31. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.5841-1.1
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The financial incentives in our experiment were given out on the basis of test scores in anonymised centralized university semester exams, which are set and marked anonymously. The experiment involved randomization at the cohort level. A cohort is a group of students taking a major course, in degree year "t", in faculty "f" in college "c" affiliated to university "u". Our cluster is a cohort. The untargeted incentive group (i.e., prize incentives for all) included two financial rewards for students in a cohort. In Assam (Meghalya), the first monetary prize, of 4,000 (5,500) rupees, was awarded to the student with the highest grade in the cohort, and the second monetary award, of 3,500 (5,000) rupees, went to the student in the top 40 % with the highest grade improvement in the cohort. The second treatment arm was socially targeted incentives (i.e., prize incentives only for the lower castes), where the same two financial incentives were given only to lower-caste students within a cohort: the first to the highest scorer from a lower caste in the cohort, and the second to the student who was in the top 40 % among lower-caste students in the cohort and who showed the highest improvement in scores compared with their previous university test scores. The third treatment was income targeting (i.e., prize incentives only for the poor), where the same two financial incentives were given to students with an annual family income of 150,000 rupees or less.
Intervention Start Date
2016-07-31
Intervention End Date
2016-10-07

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
student test scores in university semester exams that were incentivised in the experiment
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
names of friends who studied in a group to prepare for the incentivised exams
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
It is a cohort level cluster design where students in a cohort are given rank based financial incentives for future anonymised university exams. The details are mentioned in the intervention section.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
randomisation done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
cluster (cohort level)
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
468 cohorts
Sample size: planned number of observations
more than 14,000 university students
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
We have 103 cohorts in the caste and 103 in the untargeted treatment arm, and 101 in the income treatment arm; the rest are in the control group.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
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