Social Media and Academic Engagement

Last registered on April 12, 2022
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Social Media and Academic Engagement
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0008958
Initial registration date
April 11, 2022

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
April 12, 2022, 8:26 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Casey Wichman
Affiliation
Georgia Institute of Technology
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2022-02-01
End date
2025-12-31
Keywords
Other
Additional Keywords
Social Media, Academic Citations
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
An RCT to determine how social media can influence engagement with academic literature.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Wichman, Casey. 2022. "Social Media and Academic Engagement." AEA RCT Registry. April 12. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.8958-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention (Hidden)
The PI serves as the Social Media Director for two academic economics journals and is responsible for posting tweets to alert the academic research community to recently accepted papers. The research study will randomize which papers will receive a "boiler plate" announcement vs. a "detailed" announcement that highlights a key result from the paper. The PI will also contact authors of randomly chosen accepted papers via email to encourage them to post their own "thread" that puts the primary findings of the paper in their own terms. This secondary treatment will be layered on top of the first two treatments. The resulting randomization will allow the PI to determine to what degree social media can influence public engagement with academic literature and, ultimately, whether increasing the salience of academic literature on social media increases the number of citations of that work.
Intervention Start Date
2022-03-01
Intervention End Date
2024-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Engagement with Twitter post about newly accepted articles (likes, retweets, follow-through clicks to article, etc.). Citations (obtained via Google Scholar or Web of Science).
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
An RCT to determine how social media can influence engagement with academic literature.
Experimental Design Details
As new articles are accepted, they will be randomly assigned to one of four treatment arms with equal probability:

--Basic post (e.g., boiler plate announcement of newly accepted paper)
--Basic post + author encouragement (e.g., authors will be encouraged via email to write a Twitter thread summarizing key points)
--Detailed post (e.g., highlighting figure from paper, emphasizing core result, catchy tweet to draw readers in)
--Detailed post + author encouragement.
Randomization Method
Randomization will be conducted using R, generating an ordered list of treatment designations with a fixed seed. As papers are accepted, they will be randomly assigned to one of the four treatment groups.
Randomization Unit
Article.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
N/A
Sample size: planned number of observations
200-500 articles.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Sample will be evenly split across 4 treatment arms.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Georgia Institute of Technology
IRB Approval Date
2022-04-11
IRB Approval Number
H22090
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