, via this article on bathroom behavior in the Atlantic.
RCT training opportunity
I attended this several years ago, and it is an excellent training opportunity:
2014 Summer Research Training Institute on Cluster-Randomized Trials
How editors should deal with referees – an experiment
As someone who serves on four ed boards, I found this presentation very interesting: How can We Increase Pro-Social Behavior? An Experiment with Referees at the Journal of Public Economics Referees randomized to one of four groups in invitation emails: 1. 6 week – 6 week deadline [control group] 2. Social – 6 week deadline + referee turnaround time posted on journal’s website at end of year 3. 4...
“Closing the social class achievement gap” paper
A colleague at NCSU asked my opinion of this paper, which tests the effect of a diversity education intervention on GPA. In general, the paper is quite detailed and the analysis carefully done. But the authors find that their intervention has quite an impact: This main effect was qualified, however, by the predicted interaction of generation and condition [F(1,125)=4.34, p=.039]. Unpacking the...
Faculty discrimination against females and minority students
Mike Bastedo sent this to me; it’s a field experiment looking at how faculty respond to email requests from prospective doctoral students of different races and gender. Their Figure 2 is pretty amazing; I would not have guessed the differential was so large within the field of education (although note the size of the standard error):
Random roommate assignment mentioned in the NY Times
Good quote about RCTs
“In other words, discovering program improvements that really work is extremely hard. We labor in the dark — scratching and clawing for tiny scraps of causal insight.”
On Megan McArdle’s blog.
The debate over RCTs in health policy research
Interesting discussion of problems with RCTs
And it’s not the standard, “too difficult, unethical, etc.” arguments you always hear:
Protected: Field experiments in postsecondary research
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