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What Are My Chances? Incomplete Information and College Students' Effort

Last registered on September 08, 2020
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
What Are My Chances? Incomplete Information and College Students' Effort
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0006408
Initial registration date
September 04, 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
September 08, 2020, 9:39 AM EDT

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Puneet Arora
Affiliation
Management Development Institute Gurgaon
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Nicholas Wright
PI Affiliation
Florida Gulf Coast University

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2020-08-28
End date
2024-06-01
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
Grade expectations, effort, overconfidence, stress
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Students form beliefs about their expected performance in a course based on incomplete information. This may cause students to make sub-optimal effort decisions and ultimately negatively impact their performance. In this study, we examine the impact of providing students with complete information
about their likelihood of success in a course. Using a field experiment, we study how such an intervention affects students' effort, attendance and academic performance.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Arora, Puneet and Nicholas Wright. 2020. "What Are My Chances? Incomplete Information and College Students' Effort." AEA RCT Registry. September 08. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.6408-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2021-01-01
Intervention End Date
2023-09-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
1. Effort 1: Planned and actual study time
2. Effort 2: Attendance, extra credit, homework
3. Expected/goal grade
4. Mid term and final exam grades
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We will randomly assign students into two groups - treatment and control.

Control group will fill the same set of incentivized baseline, midline and endline surveys as the treatment group. The only difference will be that the treatment group will be revealed the information about past grade distribution.

The assignment of students to the two groups will happen randomly and individually. They'll be assigned to their respective groups in the early days of the course using a random device,. The assignment, however, will not be conducted before the drop-out date has passed. This will prevent any spill-overs by students switching between classes as a result of our intervention.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Individual level randomization at the initial stage to assign students into treatment and control groups. At a later stage, we will randomly also send reminders to about half the treated students to study whether reminder have any additional effect on the outcome variables.

We will do stratified randomization where each classroom will act as a strata/block within which we will randomize students.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
18 classrooms
Sample size: planned number of observations
1400
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
700 students in control and 700 students in treatment
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
0.2 standard deviation (1.5%) increase expected
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Florida Gulf Coast University IRB
IRB Approval Date
2020-08-28
IRB Approval Number
2020-71
Analysis Plan