Yes, small ones—but not peer-reviewed or published (which is much harder). We did a tiny randomized admissions experiment early on (with the admissions in summer 2012, the follow-up surveys one year later), and a small randomized online experiment; we will probably run another randomized admissions set sometime in 2015, w/ results coming in in 2016. (In some years, if/when we get to a point where funding is more secure, we will likely do more.)
Yep; that would be good to do, and I suspect we’ll get to it; I’m a bit embarrassed that we haven’t done it, but we are in fact getting better with time at doing the things that it’s embarrassing not to do, while also prioritizing the few things that most yield compound progress.
Are there any plans to try randomized controlled trials in the future?
Yes, small ones—but not peer-reviewed or published (which is much harder). We did a tiny randomized admissions experiment early on (with the admissions in summer 2012, the follow-up surveys one year later), and a small randomized online experiment; we will probably run another randomized admissions set sometime in 2015, w/ results coming in in 2016. (In some years, if/when we get to a point where funding is more secure, we will likely do more.)
Is there a chance that a written up version of these small results will get posted on the CFAR website?
Yep; that would be good to do, and I suspect we’ll get to it; I’m a bit embarrassed that we haven’t done it, but we are in fact getting better with time at doing the things that it’s embarrassing not to do, while also prioritizing the few things that most yield compound progress.