|
Field
Primary Outcomes (End Points)
|
Before
1. Beliefs: views about civil service work
2. Intermediate outcome: take-up of exam-prep kits
2.1 Willingness to pay for exam-prep kits.
2.2 Choice between a fixed amount of payment and a lottery of an exam-prep kit.
3. Sign-up decisions: actual sign-up decisions for the civil service exam
|
After
1. Beliefs: views about civil service work
2. Intermediate outcomes: email list sign-up and video click-through rate
2.1 Willingness to sign up for an email list sending them reminders about civil service exams.
2.2 Whether participants click a link to a short video about civil service exams.
3. Sign-up decisions: actual sign-up decisions for the civil service exam
|
|
Field
Experimental Design (Public)
|
Before
We propose an online experiment to study correlation neglect bias on social media, under the context of civil context exam in China. We will explore how reposts from civil servants affect college students’ career choices about being a civil servant. We will recruit Chinese college students as our study participants.
We will recruit participants from Wechat groups and pre-screen college students based on the following criterion:
i. In the last two years in college or in graduate schools.
ii. Spend at least 30 minutes on Microblog every day.
iii. Hesitant about signing up for civil service exams
After getting consent from those participants who meet the criterion above, the experiment will be conducted in the following steps:
1. We will send a baseline survey via email. The baseline survey includes information about demographics, including gender, age, school, major etc. We will then ask about their baseline beliefs on civil service jobs as well as willingness to become civil servants. In addition, we will ask them to choose between a fixed payment and a lottery of an expensive exam prep kit for the civil service exam.
2. We will randomly assign participants into two groups and incentivize them to special-follow different Microblog accounts operated by us at the end of the baseline survey (special-following makes sure that our posts appear at the top of followers’ feeds). Those in the Treatment group will follow accounts A, B, C and Z while those in the Control group will follow accounts C, D, E and Z. Accounts A, B, C and Z will post (and repost) things relevant to civil service jobs and Accounts D and E will post irrelevant things to make sure that participants in both groups follow the same amount of information. Participants will be incentivized to upload a screenshot in order to prove that they special follow us. We will also incentivize them to “like” our posts.
3. For the next three weeks, we will post and repost things with our six accounts (all posts will be based on actual posts on Sina Microblog, there won’t be any deception). For accounts A, B and C, B will repost A’s post and C will repost B’s post so that we can get the reposting chains: B//@A and C//@B//@A. (An example of what participants in each group will see can be found in “example_posts.doc”)
Those in the control group will see:
- C // @B // @ A: negative info about civil service jobs.
- Z: positive info about civil service jobs.
- D: irrelevant posts (for example about pests).
- E: irrelevant posts (for example about pests).
Those in the treatment group will see:
- C // @B // @ A: negative info about civil service jobs.
- B // @ A: negative info about civil service jobs.
- A: negative info about civil service jobs.
- Z: positive info about civil service jobs
(Note: The content of the three posts “C // @B // @ A”, “B // @ A” and A will be the same.)
The key point here is that both groups receive the exact same amount of information on civil service jobs. However, for those in the treatment group, due to repeated exposure to the same information sources, if participants are subject to correlation neglect bias, they will overreact to A’s post be more likely to overweight negative information about civil service jobs.
4. During these three weeks, we will keep track of the number of likes and who “liked” it for each post to get a proxy for attention for each post.
5. After following these accounts for three weeks, we will elicit their posteriors about civil service jobs, and willingness to become a civil servant. We will also ask them to choose between the fixed payment and a lottery for an expensive exam prep kit again. This endline survey will also be distributed via email.
|
After
We propose an online experiment to study correlation neglect bias on social media, under the context of civil context exam in China. We will explore how reposts from civil servants affect college students’ career choices about being a civil servant. We will recruit Chinese college students as our study participants.
We will recruit participants from Wechat groups and pre-screen college students based on the following criterion:
i. In the last two years in college or in graduate schools.
ii. Spend at least 30 minutes on Microblog every day.
iii. Hesitant about signing up for civil service exams
After getting consent from those participants who meet the criterion above, the experiment will be conducted in the following steps:
1. We will send a baseline survey via email. The baseline survey includes information about demographics, including gender, age, school, major etc. We will then ask about their baseline beliefs on civil service jobs as well as willingness to become civil servants.
2. We will randomly assign participants into two groups and incentivize them to special-follow different Microblog accounts operated by us at the end of the baseline survey (special-following makes sure that our posts appear at the top of followers’ feeds). Those in the Treatment group will follow accounts A, B, C and Z while those in the Control group will follow accounts C, D, E and Z. Accounts A, B, C and Z will post (and repost) things relevant to civil service jobs and Accounts D and E will post irrelevant things to make sure that participants in both groups follow the same amount of information. Participants will be incentivized to upload a screenshot in order to prove that they special follow us. We will also incentivize them to “like” our posts.
3. For the next three weeks, we will post and repost things with our six accounts (all posts will be based on actual posts on Sina Microblog, there won’t be any deception). For accounts A, B and C, B will repost A’s post and C will repost B’s post so that we can get the reposting chains: B//@A and C//@B//@A. (An example of what participants in each group will see can be found in “example_posts.doc”)
Those in the control group will see:
- C // @B // @ A: negative info about civil service jobs.
- Z: positive info about civil service jobs.
- D: irrelevant posts (for example about pests).
- E: irrelevant posts (for example about pests).
Those in the treatment group will see:
- C // @B // @ A: negative info about civil service jobs.
- B // @ A: negative info about civil service jobs.
- A: negative info about civil service jobs.
- Z: positive info about civil service jobs
(Note: The content of the three posts “C // @B // @ A”, “B // @ A” and A will be the same.)
The key point here is that both groups receive the exact same amount of information on civil service jobs. However, for those in the treatment group, due to repeated exposure to the same information sources, if participants are subject to correlation neglect bias, they will overreact to A’s post be more likely to overweight negative information about civil service jobs.
4. During these three weeks, we will keep track of the number of likes and who “liked” it for each post to get a proxy for attention for each post.
5. After following these accounts for three weeks, we will elicit their posteriors about civil service jobs, and willingness to become a civil servant. We will also ask them whether they want to sign up for an email list sending them reminders about civil service exams and track the click-through rate for a video about civil service exams. This endline survey will also be distributed via email.
|