Abstract

We conducted a randomized factorial experiment to determine how displaying school information to parents in different ways affects what schools they choose for their children in a hypothetical school district. In a sample of 3,500 low-income parents of school-aged children, a small design manipulation, such as changing the default order in which schools were presented, induced meaningful changes in the types of schools selected. Other design choices such as using icons to represent data, instead of graphs or just numbers, or presenting concise summaries instead of detailed displays, also led parents to choose schools with higher academic performance. We also examined effects on parents’ understanding of the information and their self-reported satisfaction and ease of use. In some cases, there were trade-offs. For example, representing data using only numbers maximized understanding, but adding graphs maximized satisfaction at the expense of understanding.

摘要

我们进行了一项随机析因实验，以确定以不同方式向父母展示学校信息如何影响他们在假设的学区为子女选择的学校。在3,500名学龄儿童的低收入父母的样本中，较小的设计操纵（例如更改显示学校的默认顺序）引起了所选学校类型的有意义的变化。其他设计选择，例如使用图标表示数据，而不是图形或数字，或提供简洁的摘要而不是详细的显示，也促使父母选择了学习成绩较高的学校。我们还研究了对父母了解信息及其自我报告的满意度和易用性的影响。在某些情况下，需要进行权衡。例如，