The impact of COVID-19 social isolation measures on the academic performance of Azerbaijani students

Last registered on August 13, 2020

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

The impact of COVID-19 social isolation measures on the academic performance of Azerbaijani students

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0006285

Initial registration date

August 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

August 13, 2020, 12:33 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country

Azerbaijan

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Samir Huseynov

Affiliation

Auburn University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Zahra Murad

PI Affiliation

University of Portsmouth

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2020-08-14

End date

2020-09-15

Keywords

Education, Gender, Welfare

Additional Keywords

COVID-19, student performance, emotional and cognitive health, differential impact

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Abstract

This study aims to understand the effect of COVID-19 social isolation and lockdown measures on the academic performance of Azerbaijani higher education students. At the beginning of March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Azerbaijani universities had to transition to online delivery of all courses. This was an unprecedented experience both for higher education institutes and for the entire student body, as according to Azerbaijani laws, online courses cannot be listed in academic degree plans. Therefore, neither Azerbaijani universities nor students had previous experience in online academic degree-seeking education.

The online instruction also raised questions and concerns regarding the existence and effectiveness of the relevant infrastructure at Azerbaijani universities. The prevalence of unequal access to online educational resources and means among students also became the focus of debates. Some students experienced financial problems and consequently had to leave their dorms or rented apartments for living with their parents and relatives in smaller cities and provinces. Disruptions to living arrangements also increased the gap in access to educational resources among different student groups. The gap could be more pronounced for female students who would have to live with their parents, as based on local traditions, females are supposed to undertake the largest share of household chores.

The researchers will conduct a survey among Azerbaijani undergraduate and master students at the University of Economics (UNEC) to understand how COVID-19 isolation and lockdown measures and online educational delivery affected their academic performance.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Huseynov, Samir and Zahra Murad. 2020. "The impact of COVID-19 social isolation measures on the academic performance of Azerbaijani students ." AEA RCT Registry. August 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.6285-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The researchers will conduct a survey among Azerbaijani undergraduate and master students at the University of Economics (UNEC) to understand how COVID-19 isolation and lockdown measures and online educational delivery affected their academic performance.

Intervention Start Date

2020-08-14

Intervention End Date

2020-09-15

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

The main outcome variable is the pre- and post-Spring 2020 educational outcomes.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

H1a. The academic performance of students from lower-income families /regions will be more negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic compared to students from higher-income families/capital city.

H1b. The effect will be moderated with demographic profile measures and quality of living conditions indicators.

H2a. Female students will be more negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic compared to male students and more so for those from lower-income families/region than those from higher-income families/capital city.

H2b. The effect will be moderated with demographic profile measures and quality of living conditions indicators.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design Details

The first block of the survey will include questions about the living arrangements of students before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. This block will enable the researchers to capture the quality of living conditions of students and incurred changes because of the pandemic. The second block of the survey will reveal the academic history of students and also their academic performance during COVID-19. The third survey block will contain questions on the demographic profile of students. The final block of the survey will measure the cognitive performance and emotional resilience of students.

Randomization Method

The survey will be incentivized with a lottery among students who completed the entire study. The researchers will randomly select 25 students among survey respondents for 20.00 AZN ($12.00) cash reward. The selected students will have to present their student IDs and also their unofficial transcripts to receive the cash reward. The cash earning will be realized if the survey responses overlap with the information indicated in submitted documents. This procedure will induce truthful reporting of academic performance measures.

Randomization Unit

n/a

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

n/a

Sample size: planned number of observations

1064

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

n/a

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

We will aim to collect 1000+ responses to allow for sufficient degrees of freedom to perform the statistical test given the number of variables we will collect. To detect a small effect size using an OLS regression. We calculated the ex-ante required sample size using G*power software. Based on G*power, we have to have at least 1064 survey respondents to achieve 80% statistical power (for the small effect size of f^2=0.02), error probability of 0.05 using linear multiple regressions with 20 control variables.

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB